Tommorow we find out who will drive for Force India.

In the mean time:

http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns19922.html

Maybe some of the best drivers aren't in Formula One

Hard to bring new blood into F1--it costs so much. McLaren knew exactly what they were getting with Lewis Hamilton, cultivated him for years.

I don't think there's any such thing as a best driver, I doubt Michael would do well in WRC or NASCAR for that matter if he just went there without a concentrated workup. Of course one of the things that makes him great is that he WOULD do a concentrated workup before he turned a wheel in anger.

I do think that F1 absolutely is the ultimate test of driver and machine. Look at what it takes to be at the top. Even the Rent-A-Racers and national pride guys are really, really good. It's not hard to get an F1 car around a track, but it's almost impossible to get one around within ten seconds of the fastest guys.

I don't know if you guys are snickering a little about Danika and Sarah, but hype aside, they are both superb drivers. Top one percent I'd say. I used to race a Radical in SCCA regional/national (D Sports Racer). For perspective, because of all the development that goes into this class the DSRs are as fast as Formula Atlantics. One guy who could beat me effortlessly was Jaremko, driving his Stohr--he won the national DSR championship for I don't know how many years in a row. Before Stohr went bankrupt they were doing a lot of promoting, and their marketing guy told me they got Sarah Fischer to test drive a Stohr at PIR just for fun, and she knocked a full second off Jaremko's time the first time she sat in the car. Stunned everyone.

And it's Fisichella!

Are F1 drivers the best? Hard question to answer. I have always thought the WRC guys are pretty impressive, so perhaps it is Marcus and not Michael who is the best? It certainly is not guys who go round in a circle for a living!

I don't think anyone is snickering at the girls - if you can drive you can drive that's it.

I'd be tempted to define "best" as the guy who can get in another venue's hardware and do better than the best guy of the other venue could do in his.

In that case, without question, the current best racing drivers are all on two wheels. I don't think that was always so, but today's GP bikes are incredible beasts. And there isn't an F1 driver who could through a leg over one and not be lapped in three laps. But all the top ten MotoGP riders would do just fine in F1, once they got the teamwork aspect figured out.

WRC probably next, and F1 after that.

I don't sell NASCAR short any more. Don't care to watch it, but I've driven one of the cars. It's racing for sure. Coming off the banking at Daytona (where you can't see a damn thing--your windshield is full of asphalt all the way through the turn in point) you have to beg the damn car to stay on the track. Six inches from the wall at 170 with the back end still drifting. Boring to watch though. I went to Daytona as a guest of Hollywood Video when they were sponsoring a car. Got to hang in the pits and all that. After about an hour I realized I was the only one watching the race. For as far as I could see, there was no one looking at the track.

I totally agree with you on that Bill. M/C-racers, then WRC and then Indy/F1. Remember that Rossi set the 9th fastest time at Valencia in 2006 out of 15 cars, despite just having tested an F1 car before, never competed in one. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_k … _n16053047
And John Surtees, in the 50ies/60ies that became WC in (Ferrari) both the 500-class as well as F1. At the time when the F1 cars had lots of hp but no traction (anybody ever played the upgraded version of Grand Prix Legends? If not, I totally recommend you download it if you either like racing games or is an racing fanatic. The realism is incredible, drifting those extreme horsepowered cars but big, skinny wheels with no traction, rear-wheel steering them)

I have an old version of GP Legends, not sure if it's been upgraded since I bought it. Fantastic, but the circuits are not very accurate. I have GT4 on a playstation with the special wheels for GT4 and it's amazing. 

Little nuances in the circuits that people familiar with them know about but you can barely see are faithfully reproduced. Like the grandstand straight at Laguna Seca. When you crest the hill past the starters bridge right before the media center there's a little dip on the right side. You have some steering input at that point since you're compensating for a kink and you're going about as fast as your car will go so if you hit that invisible dip most times you'll be driving backwards before you can react. The dip is there in GT4's version of the game.

Wow, cool. I'll have to figure out some way to get my original CD from Portland--I'm here in Maui for five months. I loved that game, the cars are very realistic. I always wanted a BRM, or a Brabham, a Lotus 49 or a Tyrell.

But my wife and I have a deal, I don't drive open wheel cars and she doesn't divorce me. If it wasn't for that I'd be racing one of these beasts for real (or I'd be dead, which is kind of her point).

Most of the old constructors that are still with us are a little horrified to see amateur drivers racing their cars. they killed talented pros with great regularity back in the day.  Of course most people aren't pushing the edge of the edge, and the combination of far better tires (even in skinny formats), better safety gear, and more refined handling makes them easier to drive than they ever were.

Heck, with modern suspension design software I've been able to make what is essentially a TR3 handle well enough to beat the lap records for most classic tracks twenty years ago.

I wonder how much Lewis's new 5 year deal is worth? $100 million?

Not in the Hamilton parade

I bet Lewis' contract lasts a very long time, but gets renegotiated if and when he wins the championship. Of course any other sponsor deals on the side will raise the bucks quickly. Seems I heard somewhere that Schumacher's lifetime compensation from all sources approaches 1Billion USD

So how many euro is that?   maybe just enough to make it to his reterment right? :wink: