You can't win a car race without both but which is most important.?
You can't win a car race without both but which is most important.?
The car. You can learn to drive a top 5 car, building a top 5 car is the toughest part. My dad was a crew chief for a guy that was on the crew and built a few really good cars. The former crew member went on to build his own car. He tried getting my dad to drive it for him. My dad advised him to learn to drive his own car. Well he went on to win his Nascar late model division 3 times (when it was a thing). Building the car is the hardest part, lots of people can drive it. Doing both is really where it's at if you ask me.
Car
Look at where Hamilton is now.
I always wondered what would happen if they took Michael Schumacher at the peak of his career and threw him in an Arrows or something and then let a backmarker take some runs in the championship winning car.
With how well Mika Salo did after a few runs in a Ferrari it sure seems like a world-class car can elevate its driver quite a bit, so I'm going with the car as well.
The car has to be good enough for a driver to make the difference. Look at Hamilton vs Bottas for the past few years, and then Max and Lewis last year both running away from their teammates.
I build my own cars, so I'm happy either way :D
I think it's car up to a certain skill level, and then you get to crazy skills where someone mops the floor with everybody else, driving a mediocre car.
If the cars are close enough, it's the driver. If the drivers are close enough, it's the car.
The venue also plays a large part in either converging or diverging the performance between the cars and/or the drivers.
Keith Tanner said:The car has to be good enough for a driver to make the difference. Look at Hamilton vs Bottas for the past few years, and then Max and Lewis last year both running away from their teammates.
I build my own cars, so I'm happy either way :D
I too build my own cars. That way I can blame the car and the driver if I don't win but " modestly " claim the car won on the podium, I was just the spacer. Nothing like a little false modesty. ;-)
Where are we talking? At the barely-above-HPDE level of local orgs, I'd rather be a great driver than have a great car. There's a wider range of driver skill there, and a "natural talent" can quickly rack up wins even with a wide gap in the car's ability.
At the tippy top, I agree that the whole field is good drivers, hence the car becomes the more important factor.
The driver for sure.
To me, this is like asking whether the artist or the paintbrush is more important.
Sure, at some level there are real differences in paintbrushes. The variation between humans is way larger.
edit, put another way, give a top driver an average car and you'll still get real art. Give an average person a top car and you won't.
pointofdeparture said:I always wondered what would happen if they took Michael Schumacher at the peak of his career and threw him in an Arrows or something and then let a backmarker take some runs in the championship winning car.
With how well Mika Salo did after a few runs in a Ferrari it sure seems like a world-class car can elevate its driver quite a bit, so I'm going with the car as well.
I suspect most drivers who get to the Formula 1 level based on skill not a big checkbook behind them could do very well with a top flight car.
But look a at Schumacher most of the cars he drove didn't do all that well after he left.
Then maybe cars go through cycles like drivers.
According to Senna the purest form of racing is karting. Senna had great respect for Mike Wilson as did many other notable drivers, but he isn't a champion outside of karting, he beat a lot of world champions. Racing is not just talent, its the car, money, situation, opportunity, and the mental capacity. Remember when Toyota F1 had the biggest budget but couldn't win a race?
At the top end both are important; A great driver can pull out an occasional win in an OK car but likely won't net a championship, conversely an OK driver in a great car will get some wins but likely not a championship.
The Hamiltons, Verstappens, Prosts & Sennas of the world show you what they are capable of. Their teammates show you what the actual pace of the car is.
At our level the driver has way more to do with it.
A driver that has competition is a much better driver than someone who racks up wins and championships against competition that's not on the same level. There's a 7 time champ from a(n American) road racing series that's a prime example of that right now.
(edited to add 'American')
Neither.
In reply to racerfink :
Man, Lewis got thrown under the bus in a big hurry. Funny how he came within one poor race director call of winning the driver's championship despite not having the best car on the grid last year. How soon we forget.
That's why I said the car had to be good enough to give the driver a chance. The Mercedes currently isn't.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Okay, I'll amend my post to say AMERICAN road race series. Lewis has proven himself in other disciplines and through his race craft.
Buying commodities is easy, what's hard is finding people with the right skills. At the grassroots level this means that driver is far more important than car. At the F1 or Le Mans levels it's both because you can't just go out and buy a top-end car, you have to design and build it yourself. That means you need the right people on your engineering team and it's not any easier to find and hire an Adrian Newey than it is a Schumacher or Hamilton.
It's the driver, but we think it's the car.
A top driver can outperform most average guys even if he is driving a 15 passenger van.
Most of us are not good drivers, but we all dream of winning. We WISH it was the car, so we might have a chance.
Among top racers, there is no such thing as a mediocre car or an average driver, so it's a mute point.
In reply to racerfink :
Fair enough!
We have to acknowledge this, of course...
Incredibly silly question without parameters. I'm 100% certain I could beat any professional driver in any race if you put them in a stock Model T and me in a Z06. All I'd have to do to win is not crash. I'm also 99% certain that almost any professional driver would soundly whoop my ass if they were not in a Model T, but a stock NA2 Miata.
Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:The driver for sure.
To me, this is like asking whether the artist or the paintbrush is more important.
Sure, at some level there are real differences in paintbrushes. The variation between humans is way larger.
edit, put another way, give a top driver an average car and you'll still get real art. Give an average person a top car and you won't.
This. I play saxophone, and while I have a nice horn and am pretty good, Coltrane on a falling-apart student model horn would still wipe the floor with everyone. Hell, Charlie Parker was playing on falling-apart and/or borrowed horns most of his career.
It's the driver. Try the same question among motorcycle riders (who don't suck).
It's both. It's harder and takes more resources and skill to build the best car than it does to find an adequate driver. A lot of guys will win in F1 in the right car or cars. It's the same at QB in football. You can put the best QB on the worst team and it'll make almost no difference. Put that QB on a good team and viola. The problem is that as humans we tend to worship or be in more awe of the person than the machine. I sat next to a championship winning F1 driver for an international flight and didn't bother him one bit. Now watching the stewards make complete jerks out of themselves was priceless. I've met baseball stars, football super bowl stars, and famous comedians. Not once have I asked for an autograph, because I think it's a bit rude and they get that too often. I love minor league baseball, because I can chat up tomorrow's stars or see some of the stars doing rehab work. I've also met and talked to lots of racecar drivers (many years ago). They share more in common than different.
Heck imagine Barry Sanders if he ever played on a good team with a good offensive line (best car). He'd have been unbeatable. It takes both. If you can build the best car, you can learn to drive it.
I don't think these are independent variables.
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