I would say for driver skill, Formula 1 is the toughest. Anyone remember Nigel Mansell? He was kind of washed up in Europe. He came here to Indy Cars, and cleaned up his rookie year. How many drivers have gone from racing in the USA to Formula 1 and done well? I'm pretty sure it's zero.

 

DAKAR is a Cross-Country Rally, the most difficult one of the whole lot.

other Cross-Country Rallies are only 2-day to 1 week events.

DAKAR goes on for 3 weeks. it's not as hard on proffessional drivers who have full backup teams and assistance,
compared to amateur drivers (privateers).

 

Jacques Villeneuve in 1997 won the F1 Championship,
he had the best car though and in recent years is failing badly.

 

How about the US roads. All the idiots on there cellphones.
WRC
F1
Dakar

Dakar is last because the are not turning enough. WRC and F1 are constantly.

 

I'll have to disagree....I think Drifting is the toughest type of driving. F1 is just about handling a fast car with faster reflexes, it takes more natural god given talent than skill. Skill is just learned over time, if you're just plain slow at reacting you'll never drive f1 no matter how skilled you are.

Dakar is all about taking jumps, not much skill or talent required, and to be honest the driving in Dakar pretty much anyone can do, i've driven dune buggies before and keeping the rubber side down is pretty much the only thing you have to do.

WRC you have to be very skilled, have amazing reflexes and overall be the best driver on the planet. If an F1 driver faced a WRC driver in a head to head skills test, i'd take Tommi Makinen over Schumacher any day. For the most part the car makes the driver in F1 (I guarentee you if Schumacher drove for Minardi he'd never win). Whereas in WRC its the driver that makes the car good. Look at which teams have gone up and down in the past few years. First it was all Mitsubishi and Subaru with Tommi and McRae. Then McRae went to Ford and it was all Mitsi and Ford. Now they both drive on different teams and its Citreon (McRae) and Subaru (Tommi).

But also having a little rallying experience I can tell you first hand that you need more skill for rallying than any other motorsport......with one catch.

Drifting.......I firmly believe that any well skilled driver can run a WRC course without ****in up there car in a respectable but not awe inspiring amount of time.

On the other hand not many skilled drivers can geardown, lose grip on the back wheels, put the car sideways in controlled chaos, and pull out a 10 second drift at 70 mph.

Maybe someone like Tommi or another WRC driver would suprise me with a respectable drift in a 180 degree hair pin. But when it comes to intersections or looping parking lot lights or competing in the Japan D1 series, I don't think they'd stand a chance against the likes of Komatsu from Signal Auto or Noberu from HKS. Those guys are absolutely phenomal at putting 400+ hp cars sideways without a sweat, then turning the opposite way and going right into another style of drift. Sure WRC drivers drift around 180 degree turns, but thats the only one they can do, theres like 6 or 7 types of drifts and to learn them and become good you're going to practice long and hard, because simply being a skilled driver isn't going to cut it, it's about finesse, car control and awarness and being able to put a car to the very edge of handling and bring it back immediatly so that it may be thrown in the opposite direction, and thats something not many people, much less professional drivers can do which makes it the toughest motorsport.

 

I don't know Mika Hakkinen, who I don't think is that good of a driver, drove a WRC car and did pretty well. I don't argue that the driver makes the car, where was Ferrari before Schumacher came.
It's all relative really. They all espect what the other is doing for it's difficulty in it's own right. But as you said it kind of boils down to raw talent. No matter how much skill you learn you can't beat the phenominal driver's who were just born that way. Wether it be F1, WRC, or drifting. I think the WRC guys would do okay at drifting and the good F1 drivers would do okay also. They didn't all start out there, most start in go-karts which require good control while sliding around on essentially lower grip tires.
It's really apples to oranges. Put them all on a bike and see what happens. Ultimately some of those guys are just plain sick.
This topic was on Speed and the votes pretty much came down to motorcycles first, close tie to WRC, then it was F1.

 

So I guess your saying Japanese D1 series is the toughest motorsport (Sorry I'm not trying to be a smart ***, I'm just not exactly certain what that "it" points to in your last sentence)? Haven't seen the D1 series but I've seen Komatsu and Noberu in drift sessions around race tracks. I seriously believe Tommi and plenty of other WRC drivers understand how to do those parking lot stunts and use the different types of drifts. There are tarmac rallies so I'm certain rally drivers must at least have an understanding of tarmac techniques even if they don't really use them since drifting like mad wears out tires quickly which is bad in rallies. Toshihiro Arai (the current leader in Group N WRC) demonstrated some of these skills in the Suzuka World Rally Festa 2002. You can see clips of this event in the Feb 2003 issue of Best Motoring I believe. It's the issue about the new sti if I got the wrong date. Someone about 3-5 months ago also posted movie clips of a similar event with a Lancer Evolution on these forums too.

 

I'd have to agree with AiR on the proficiency of WRC drivers when it comes to drifting. The argument is a wash I think, though I love the conversation! Anyone here ever driven an open wheel of any kind (karts excluded)? I used to drive a formula ford, star mazda, and was lucky enough to to turn a few test laps in a Toyota Atlantic car at Laguna Seca. My opinion is obviously a biased one, and I've never had any rally experience, but openwheels are very demanding. The sheer forces that F1/CART drivers experience is impossible to describe. True, reflexes and natural talent play a big part in what these drivers do, but concentration and focus (which are skills in IMO) play a much larger role. I think the ability to perform consistently over a longer period of time, and the patience/focus it requires just to FINISH a race sets the openwheelers apart. Although most race drivers in any particular series usually will cite a different series as being more "challenging" than their own due simply to unfamiliarity (i.e. F1 drivers thinking the CART drivers are "crazy" for entering corners on a superspeedway at 250mph). It's all relative I think. ALL racing is cool (even if it's shopping carts at the supermarket)

 

I drove a Furmula Ford at Pocono and think the go-kart requires more skill. Don't know why you excluded it.

 

I excluded it only because I think more people have experience in karts. But you might be right, karts may be bit more difficult.

 

The Monday morning, drop the kids, late for work, rush-hour Grand Prix is the most difficult type of racing