29 replies to this topic

[Alfisti]

The instant response from people is that F1 would be harder.... but i am not convinced. Apart from the insane power to weight ratio.... driving on tarmac circuits seems to be a fairly easy concept to get ones head around. Approach the corner.... hit the apex then exit as fast as possible ... using all the road.

On the other hand.... ralliyin g looks much difficult.... you have to get the car so loose and there seems to be no set line through the corner.... well there is but it is less defined than circit racing.

I remember McRae did quite well when he tested a Jordana few years ago and i was not at all surprised.

[Ross Stonefeld]

I think it'd be easier to just hop in and drive the WRC car. However I think its harder to RACE the world rally, because all you know about the track is "left...right...bump....slow down dude!" Imagine if F1 qualifying consisted of one hot lap of a track you'd never seen

Ross Stonefeld
Aztec Group Motorsport

[MacFan]

I agree with Ross, the WRC would be easier to get in and drive to a certain level, most people would stall / spin an F1 car pretty soon after getting in it. Driving either to its maximum potential is a skill only a few people in the world posess.

[Xan]

The single biggest difference is that fact that in F1, you race against others. In WRC it is just you versus the clock.

Tommi Makkinen tried to drive the 98 williams, and failed dismally. Sure, McRae did ok, but he's had open wheel experience before. Don't forget Martin Brundle participated in that same experiment, and was only 1 second of the pace of McRae in his rally car.

I'll bet if you put Schuey or Jax into a WRC car, they would be competitive within 1 week max. I dont think any WRC driver could qualify within the 107% rule.

[MacFan]

McRae's only previous open wheel experience was when he tore the bodywork off his Subarus in crashes...

Actually, I was there the only time he raced a car (BMW M3 in the BTCC at Knockhill). In the wet second race he was very quick, but he crashed into about 5 other cars throughout the race. Not used to other cars on the track at the same time I suppose...

[aross]

The hardest thing has to be trying to compare them!
As far as drivers go, drivers at their peak are good drivers and will do reasonably well at whatever they put their hand to. Look at how many times bike racers have converted to cars and done well.
From what I have heard thought, the big barrier to going from rallying to road racing--f1 or other open wheel--is that a rally driver is used to dealing with adversity and going sideways. In an F1, that's just going to make you slower and eat up the car. Even with the slippery grooved stones they call tires, it's still not about opposite lock and lurid slides and that's what WRC is all about. P.S. If you missed some of the corners in F1 as badly as they do in regularly in the WRC, considering the much higher average speeds, McCrae and the rest of the top runners might already be dead.

[Ricardo F1]

Ross is spot on. That said there was an old story about Ayrton Senna hopping into a rally car and scaring the crap out of some Rally driver because he was insanely fast from minute one. I guess the great drivers are great wherever they perform . . .

[Bob Nomates]

both cars would be easy to drive for a pro driver but an F1 car would be the hardest to get on the pace with.

[KJR]

I can't beleive that Martin Brundle was 1 second (!) off Colin McRae's phase. Considering that, in the last SS of rally Finland, Tommi Mäkinen was 2 seconds and Marcus Grönholm 12 seconds behind.
In 20 km SS, 20-30 seconds behind would be more like it.

Or the special stage MB drove was 1 km long.;)[p][Edited by KJR on 08-21-2000]

[Konsta]

I guess it's impossible to compare the two. Both require car control beyond belief. What really separates the sports is that in rallying you can't make a slightest mistake since the are no gravel traps just trees. In an interview from Marlboro Masters Rubens said that there's no way he would have the guts to "co-pilot" Tommi Mäkinen for the speed they're doing on twisty gravel roads ;)
By the way Mr Mäkinen was doing reasonably well with Williams until the gearbox jammed going 250 km/h.
Cheers, Konsta

[Sean L]

Ricardo, I read read an article about Senna testing about 9 different rally cars from different eras from a Ford Cosworth and a Golf GTi to a current (then) WRC car. It was really interesting to read his comments on testing different cars. They said he took about an hour to get to be just about on the pace.

And someone posted this quote here a few months back:

During 1990 or 1991
"He drove very fast, on these snowy roads, with only the wheel ruts to drive in. I was nervous, very nervous, because we were going so fast. I mean we were driving at very high speeds indeed and I felt quite frightened. We were going faster than I felt was safe. When we got to the clinic, we went in for our check-ups and we had our pulses tested. They took my pulse and it was 100 or 120 or something and they said 'Hey, are you all right, and what have you been doing?' and I said I had been a little excited, but I would be better soon. I suggested they took Michael's pulse to see what I meant after the drive we had just had and when they took his pulse it was normal. I mean it was only 60 or 70 or something. It was just incredible." - Heinz-Harald Frentzen, travelling with Michael to have a physical.

I've got no doubt that most F1 drivers would have no trouble going quickly in anything they cared to drive. I've read a few stories of GP drivers like Alesi, Berger, Senna and Schumacher scaring the living **** out of motor journalists in road cars. It would just take them a little time to adapt to a different way of driving but they'd be on the pace soon enough.

OTOH I'm not too sure about most of the top WRC drivers being on the pace after a month in a F1 car.

[Dazed and confused]

Martin Brundle and Derek Warwick have done a couple of RAC rallys. I remember Warwick finishing about half an hour behind the winner and Brundle never making it to the finish. It's a completely different world. Jax being competitive in a WRC car after a week is a joke.

[Nathan]

Ask Alesi, he drove a WRX not too long ago. Brundle as well has done some testing.

[magic]

the hardest part of f1 seems to be those last few tenths.
and keeping the pace over a long distance, sharing the asfalt with 21 other guys driving an ultracomplex and sensitiv car.

alesi has incredible carcontrol and 1 vic in too many races, even in slippery conditions no match for ms.

in rallies drivers are supposed to drive around problems, in f1 you should avoid them.

[Cinquecento]

I've driven a couple of rally Fiats and an Opel Ascona. Just during testing, nothing competitive.

From my experience it's clear that running a rally car on real roads is a lot more challenging than taking the same car to a track. That said, racing on a track with a F1 beast is a liiittle bit different, of course.

Rallying is challenging because you have to rely so much on the infromation from the notes. When you go into a curve or a corner, you must listen to what is ahead in the next two notes already, and you have to decide how you're getting out of the corner and going in to the next based on that information. It's crazy doing over 170 km/h to a corner that your nerve-ends are screaming can't possibly be taken over 120 km/h. And the cars I was driving were piss-ass machinery, so lots more reaction times there compared to WRCs.

Also, all the jumping makes the driving tricky. The panic when you realise you've put the car badly before the jump and your turning sideways (20 cm is enough) in the air, and it's going to land unevenly, and you're not going to make it optimally into the braking zone.. makes you **** yourself.

I remember Hakkinen destroyed Makinen's Nissan Sunny in 1991 Rally of Finland. Into the ditch and rolled over. And I recall Makinen was doing pretty badly coming out of a slow corner in the Williams, putting too much power on and spinning nose first into the wall. Some people have insane jobs. *L*

[mtl'78]

Gilles Villeneuve hopped in a WRC car and won a stage in Italy his first try out. He also won an indurance race driving with some old F1 driver.

The reason F1 drivers are more easily adapted to rallying or any other form of motorsports, is that F1 cars are the most difficult to drive. When an F1 car slides or skids the driver has much less time, and fewer options to correct it. You can't use oversteer, you shouldn't lock up your brakes to get sideways etc. F1 cars are very nervous and require very rapid steering input. On the other end a NASCAR affords much more time. The braking distances are longer, the handling is much more stable. The engine power is lower compared to the weight, so these cars are less demanding to drive. Racing them is another matter, because if they are easier to drive, then they are easier for everybody!

That is why you put a talented F1 driver in anything and he will be quick. From his perspective, everything will be in slow motion!

[baddog]

the skills required to be a rally or F1 driver may be similiar, but the skills required to be a TOP driver in either are poles apart.

A person could be a WDC rally driver and yet have nothing like the precision and timing needed to get top 10 places in a hugely technical sport like f1. similarly a top f1 driver might well lack the sort of astonishing
reaction/correction abilities needed for top rally driving.

that said there are rally drivers who might suit f1 (the ones given to smooth precise rallying for instance) and F1 drivers who would suit rallying (the car control experts, Mansell, Schumacher etc)

Shaun

[Max Torque]

You know what? When you are in the middle of nowhere in the miidle of the race in your WRC and it just brakes down, you have to get out open the car and try to fix it, so you can go on or even because you want to be back before nightfall!
Although for me nothing beats F1, I believe that Rally is a completely different ballgame. And I also have a sneaking suspicion that it is a lot tougher. Hopping in and doing some good times means nothing. Good times count in F1. Rally is an endurance test most of all...

[baddog]

max, dead right, rallying is hugely tougher and more demanding physically and in terms of mental stamina.. it tests things that f1 never considers, and prima-donnas needn't apply.

whereas f1 is much more of a pressure cooker, every second of every lap is watched, every entry to every corner has to be perfect.. you break the car and its game over.. noones going to replace your suspension between stages here.

both huge tests, both entirely different

[Max Torque]

I read somewhere that there was one race this year (I don't remember which), when Richard Burns' Subaru just stopped, so he got out, oppened the hood and then took out his cellular and called the guys back at the (what do you call them in Rally?!!) pits to try and tell them what happened so that they can all work something out!!!! You don't see things like that in F1. In F1, if the car stops, you get out, walk to your Motorhome and call it a day.
Also, you don't try and finish a race in a car that has gone down a cliff or something!!!!

[daveturbo]

Convert F1 to WRC:

Take away the other drivers on the track at the same time and swop circuit for unknown slippery real roads made of gravel and dubious tarmac. Add cliffs, potholes, houses, rivers and bridges. Then add spectators, pitch black night stages, marshals who speak strange languages, tyre choices covering sun to torrential rain to ice and snow.

Then drive ABSOLUTELY FLAT OUT into the unknown!

F1 is TV friendly and easy to understand. I'd like to be taken round a circiut in an F1 car, but to be taken through a rally stage in a WRC ? no contest.

[Max Torque]

daveturbo, you said it perfectly m'man! :lol:

[silver]

Difference between rally cars and F1 cars is nowadays bigger than ever.

WRC cars with sophisticated 4wd drive,diffs etc etc are totally different from any normal road cars.

F1 cars of today are extremely difficult drive with their amount of downforce and lack of mechanical grip.

In the 70`s and 80`s that was not the case.
Rally cars were either real wheel driven or 4wd with solid locks.

Finnish rally driver Henry Toivonen was said to be probably the most talented driver in the 80`s from all the F1 and rally drivers...in the way he was the Gilles Villeneuve of rallying.
Actually he started his career as an openwheel driver but his parents asked him to switch to rallying for safety reasons.

In 1981 some F1 team asked him to test their machinery in Silverstone( first time for him to drive F1 car).
Team`s normal driver Raul Boesel was also testing during that same day.
It rained the whole day and in the end of the day Toivonen was 1.4 secs faster than Boesel.

In 1986 Toivonen`s Lancia team was testing in Estoril and they were looking for setups for tarmac races.

Henry`s time during that test would have given him 6th place in the F1 qualifying in the same year.

One has to remember that B-group rally cars of that time were producing around 700 hp and they could accelerate 0-100 kph on gravel in 2.5 secs.

Toivonen was said to be the only rally driver who could drive a B-group rally car as fast as they could go.

[Cinquecento]

Silver,

Henri Toivonen. Yes, he was the man. Interestingly, did you hear Alén talk about the performance of group B cars compared to WRCs'? He said he believed the WRC is as fast as the group B beast was. Knowing the difference in horsepower, one has to conclude the modern 4WD, brakes and chassis are of a different class to mid-80's.

[Sean L]

Originally posted by silver
One has to remember that B-group rally cars of that time were producing around 700 hp and they could accelerate 0-100 kph on gravel in 2.5 secs.

I don't think so. The McLaren MP4-15 only gets to 97km/h (60mph) in 2.3 seconds and the fastest road cars in about 3.5 on tar.

[baddog]

sean, try

http://www.stormload...comparison.html

for intersting look at a 1980s delta.. here compared with a wrc ford but giving estimated 0-100kmh speed.

http://www.pistonhea...tones/rs200.htm

is talking about an rs200.. amazing thing, ridiculous acceleration, as fast as a concurrent F1 car.

they really were that fast off the mark.

Shaun

[Dazed and confused]

But Mclaren MP4-15 has a top speed of 300+ kph, group B rally car something like 180 kph. Very different kind of gearing. 0-100 kph in 2.5 seconds on tar is not impossible, in a sport called rallycross 2.5 seconds is a must if you want to have a competitive car. On a gravel 0-100 in 2.5 sec. sounds pretty impossible.

[Sean L]

I've no doubt that a Grp B can accelerate as quickly as a F1 on tarmac. But the claim was 2.5 secs on gravel. I can't believe that.

[baddog]

ahh I didnt see the 'on gravel' bit.. of course thats ludicrous, youd lose a second in wheelspin

Shaun

[silver]

After B-group was banned many of those cars found their way into European rallycross champioship.

Finnish Matti Alamaki got his hands on Juha Kaunkkunen`s old Peugeot 205 T16.

One car magazine was there when he tested his car for the first time. He was concentrating on starts..

He did those starts on tarmac but it was soaking wet since it was raining cats and dogs.

If i can remember correctly it took 0-100 kph 2.4 secs and to the top speed which was 205 kph it took 7.05 secs.

I am pretty sure about the former number but i am not 100% sure if the top speed was 205 kph...

Amazing piece of machinery anyway...