Good point Au V8 is awesome race.


Balrok , rally is heavily regulated even in the states at amateur level. Even more then most TA events etc.
WRC vs F1 the rules and regulations are just as heavy both side, there is no difference there. If you think you can be sloppy when you do rally race, you making a big mistake. One example for that is Kubica who basically thought a same, then learned it different...
If you ever see a WRC event you can see the first 20+ car making the same turn in 1 inch or less difference. Styles ? yes they are different but the car is at the exact spot in the apex. Style.. that is one big deal about Rally too, makes it even more entertaining.





even the mistakes are a same if the note became different then a road conditions. lol


In EU rally where the money is at, or WRC the cars are just as similar as F1s to each other. Only difference is the tire choices are a bit more free, but there is a reason why. Like it or not , more depends on the driver still then a tire.
It is literally not one stage as like the next one, never mind the turns... if you know what I mean.
You can win if some one pick a wrong tire , but whos fault is that ?

anyhow I don't really want to turn this F1 vs WRC debate. Both race is great, but one for the nerds , and the other for the rest.

 

And that's why I don't watch F1 anymore, even though I think it still takes a great amount of skill and ***** to pilot a car capable of crazy amounts of lateral g. The year KERS was implemented was the final nail in the coffin for me.

On the flipside, Moto GP is 80% rider / 20% bike, although it's more like 75% rider / 25% bike now with all the electronic wizardry they have going on. Regardless, it's breathtaking seeing the top riders hit the same tire mark at the apex time and time again. For this, Rossi also gets my vote.


Back on topic, Loeb is no doubt one of the world's greatest rally drivers. Could he have been great in F1? Who knows? It's 2 different forms of racing and we can do nothing more but speculate. He could have gone either way. Let me stir the pot with a couple of examples:

• Ben Spies: 2009 World Superbike champion who was picked up by a factory Yamaha Moto GP team. He was booted by his second season.
• Casey Stoner: 2007 and 2011 Moto GP champion who retired and moved on to V8 Supercars. He finished 18th his first season and is now returning to Moto GP.

The point I'm trying to make is that just because Loeb was super successful in one form of racing does not mean he will be in another.

 

so what you think about Rossi vs Guy Martin?

 

Very good question. I don't think Rossi has the ***** to do the TT. Those guys are on a whole different level of insane.

 

His name was Joey Dunlop

Hey, the best driver is that guy that can extract "all" from that race car in that particular race series & repeat over & over

 

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122345

S Loeb as a WRC team owner in 2016?

 

hm,, back to no precision driving in rally , i think this is a better video to see how those guys approach, and execute the apexes and brake distances etc from the book
The best part if you stay in one corner for a while, and put a stick with a flag on it at the apex( many guys do it) then you will see almost all drivers brush it Over and over again...


even on ice and snow they do keep it pretty precise


( Road cones in Rally means DANGER, not like other sports, so means sudden (over night) road wash out / deep hole or sharp Rock etc, what the organizer put out for safety. You dont suppose to get close to it, lol Now that is a least what these drivers care though)

 

Loeb is likely top talent, period.

I wonder how Delecour, Ragnotti, Fangio, Stefan Bellof, even Simon McKinley, Taruffi and Ascari from old times, and Makinen himself, would compare.

 

To those brushing aside WRC Rally...
I've been lucky enough to witness some drivers/rallies, and frankly speaking- I was humbled in a way that F1/CART/LeMans just does not do- because nobody can remember 1000 miles of unpredictable terrain/changing conditions and all the changes that occur to the car from wear & tear, and driving in dug out tracks by other cars...
All that while flying past buildings/rocks/trees at 200-220kmh often...with 100% certainty of death in case of an inconvenient off...
In F1 there is high degree of certainty that 99% of the time an accident occurs driver will exit unharmed...that makes for a very BIG difference in approach and dealing with self preservation.

Rally cars corner at 1.5-1.6G on the street...
How many have done that on track here? Few...
Try that on street unpredictable terrain.

 

some very nicely executed apexes here and some are not. You can clearly see the difference between paid drivers and non paid drivers in rally. Oh well not all of us can drive all day long rally cars,and get paid for it. Even though we would never reach those driving skill levels but we still complaining about it.

 

 

The Maldonado line is classic. HAHAHA

 

Basically that is why funny and the nascar

 

at 2,17 how the hell that fiesta came through like that? jesus.

 

Alert - novel ahead

What are the qualifications for someone to become a professional rally driver? How many stages do you have to go through? Are all these guys starting in karts at age 4? And moving onto rally cars at what - 16? 18? What's the number of people that start some level of rally racing and then progress into paid rally drivers?

I only bring this up, because I wonder what the numbers look like in terms of the total number of people that started the process of becoming a rally car driver across the globe versus the total number of people that started the process of becoming a circuit/track car driver. Is Loeb the best rally driver out of 10,000 people(guess) who've started rally racing with the intention of becoming a professional? Is it a lot more?

It seems to me that F1, touring car, LeMans, and endurance racers etc. had to beat out much stiffer competition to get to the top of their respective fields. By virtue of those drivers having to be better than a lot more other drivers because of the increased participation. Lewis Hamilton, Vettel, etc. had to be better than 250,000(guess) other drivers from start (age 4) to finish (age 18).

I don't know WRC so - is that also the case? I don't recall ever seeing 12 year old rally drivers but I've seen 12 year olds going 100 mph in mini open wheel cars. There's multiple levels of racing prior to getting to F1 and the like, I don't know if that's the case with WRC.

How this ties into who is the best - It's hard for me to crown Loeb, when it's possible hes best out of 10,000 people. Vs. say Hamilton who had to beat out 250,000(guess) people along the way to get to where he is at. If there are in fact 250,000(guess) rally car drivers, and the gap between Loeb and the next rally driver was still as big as it is today, I'd say wow that's something.

To me it's a numbers game. That's just the way I look at it. It's possible Loeb was the best kart racer in Europe at 10 years old and chose to develop his skills as rally driver.

I'm trying to come up with an analogy- it's sort of like Messi in soccer, the fact that he is as good as he is relative to his peers is just flat out amazing when you consider how many people play soccer (or should I say futbol) at some point in their life, meaning everyone else he is playing with in the premier league is in the top .0001% percentile of talent - and he's still that much better. Versus....the best tennis player? Sure Federer is phenomenal and everything but the number of tennis player he is better than is 1/10,000th of the number of soccer players Messi is better than. Not everyone who plays soccer for fun when they are little have aspirations to be a professional when they grow up, but talent bubbles up, if you're good at a young age you're most likely going to participate on a travel team, etc. to play against better and better talent.

But I agree the politics of F1 are gross and there is a chance there are better drivers out there one level below F1 or who are now race touring cars, etc. because they couldn't get a seat in an F1 car because they didn't have the right connection. Which would breath life into Loeb or someone else having more talent.

Also are we talking best driver for one race? who do we think would set the fastest lap? how long of a race 200 laps? 4 hours?