I know we’ve got a few gearheads on the boards, so I’m hoping this doesn’t drop like a stone.
Here’s the ground rules:
No motorcycle riders. Rossi is good, yes, but let’s keep this to the four-wheeled guys.
Back up your choice. Facts are good.
So, here’s my pick:
Tony Stewart.
I know, most people would say Schumi, but I think it’s got to be the Rushville Rocket. Stewart wins in anything and everything he gets in. “Smoke” has in his trophy case the USAC Triple Crown, an Indy Racing League title (1997), a NASCAR Winston Cup championship (2002), was NASCAR Winston Cup Rookie of the Year in 1999, won the Indy 500 rookie award and is one of only three men to attempt the Indy 500/Coca-Cola 600 Memorial Day double (the others being Robby Gordon and John Andretti.)
Stewart has won in midgets, sprint cars, open wheel, stock cars, sports cars and go-karts. You can’t have success in all those disciplines without being seriously talented.
Stewart is good, but NASCAR is going to dull his edge
Hey Rossi was only 3 secs behind Schumi’s track record in his first or second time ever driving an F1 car. I also hear he’s competitive in Rally racing, and that’s just what he does for fun! I wouldn’t count The Doctor out just yet
Dull his edge? He won Watkins Glen going away on Sunday, and was quick in the Rolex Sports Car race Friday until the suspension broke on the Daytona Prototype he and Andy Wallace were sharing.
I think there are two guys in NASCAR who could jump in an F1 car tomorrow and be competitive: Smoke and Jeff Gordon (who has already shown he can wheel an F1 machine in a test at Indy a couple of years ago.)
He’s an excellent road course driver having won at the Glen a couple times. He’s also runs Dakar every year, and has also done the Indy/Coca-Cola combo.
He runs other off road races, too.
He might not be the best, but he’s certainly well rounded. I think you’d see better results in NASCAR if he was given a better ride. That would require him to be a little more palatable to the sponsors, though, which he’ll never be.
Robby Gordon’s got skills, I’ll admit. But he had a good ride in Nextel Cup for a few years and was mediocre at best. He’s a great off-road and road course racer, but the ovals throw him.
Schumi has had the best car about for a while though - look how well Barichello has done alongside him.
My vote would go for Rossi (if you saw the MotoGP race at Donington you would understand) but as we’re keeping it 4 wheels, I’ll say, ummm, why can’t I chose Rossi again?
Schumi is the best, his ability to think and plan ahead is unequalled, things like picking out the best line to preserve wet weather tyres on a drying track, meticuloua attention to detail.
He has won races in his Ferrari when he should not have even been placed, just on strategy, his ability to pull out half a dozen fast laps just when needed so as to overtake others on pit stop strategy.
The only one in F1 coming close in ability is Kimi Raikkonen, who is very fast but the unreliability of his car has seriously hampered him.
You might need to look elsewhere if you don’t wish to consider Schumi,
How about World Rally Champion Sebastion Loeb, first driver to win six in a row, and first to win seven in a season, at the moment he would be considered the best rally driver in the world, no contest.
To those of you who say it’s Schumacher: what has he won outside of F1? Has he even attempted to drive anything that didn’t cost $400 million to design?
If you put Schumi and Tony Stewart in equally matched non-F1 cars, Stewart beats him. Doesn’t matter if it’s asphalt or dirt, oval or road course.
I know very little about the rally guys, since no one in America gives a crap about rally racing.
Thats impossible to prove either way and thats where the problem comes in when attempting to choose one best driver, the different motorsport series are impossible to compare in regards to driving skill, they’re simply too different. Personally in that contest I’d put my money on Schumacher though.
If you want to see one of the incontestably best drivers operating in the world today you need to see Sebastian Loeb of the WRC in action. Trust me, rallying really is something special when you see it in action and the US is missing out on a great (though not as good as it used to be) motorsport series in the WRC.
That’s why I chose Stewart. He’s demonstrated that he has a mastery of multiple disciplines, many of which require entirely different skills (winged sprint vs. sports car vs. open wheel.)
Schumi’s one of the best F1 wheelmen ever, no question. But I haven’t seen anything to show me he could get in a dirt late-model on Thursday and win, then run a sports car on Friday and win, then run a stock car on an oval on Sunday and win.
Add to that the fact that Schum also tends to lose his cool when there’s real competition out on track. When you got the best car and clear track it’s one thing - doing it up against a serious competitor (one who isn’t just gonna move out your way when you come along) is quite another.
I’m not entirely up to speed on Tony Stewarts achievements to be honest but you have a point if he’s raced in different series.
Interestingly in last years Michelin Race of Champions event where drivers from different series get together for a competition racing against each other in different cars for charity both Schumacher and Loeb got beaten by a total unknown.
It would be interesting to see Stewart compete in that, until then I’m reserving judgement, I still assert that its impossible to propose a “best driver”.
Schumacher hasn’t always had the best car, his Benetton career for one, and he quite definitely hasn’t always had the best car even in his time at Ferrari but he still manages to win races and push his competitors hard.
He has recently been making some uncharacteristic mistakes but its not true that he can’t handle any competition. I’ve heard a lot of claims made against him before but that he’s not a racer isn’t one of them.
I mean that in the sense that Heinz-Harold Frentzen was a damn good driver and a race winner (and he could have even been World Champion in 1999 if the dies had fallen a different way) but he just wasn’t a good racer and did come apart if he had to fight with another driver.
If anything Schumacher has been accused of being too aggressive and forceful when racing others.
Ol’ Tony’s had a good couple of weeks. NASCAR is one of the few top-flight series around where his obvious “beer belly” is not a disadvantage. No doubt he’s a natural racer and had he been born in Europe he’d probably be in F1 (and perhaps 30 pounds lighter). NASCAR certainly isn’t “easy”, but it certainly isn’t the test of fitness that rally driving or F1 provides.
The whole Race of Champions is a bit of a crapshoot. Casey Mears, hardly a top figure in NASCAR, had a good run in it one year, while Jimmy Johnson, a NASCAR champion, had a tough time in it. A nice event, but it really doesn’t provide satisfying answers. It would be cool if Stewart agrees to compete if he is asked.
My vote goes to Sebastien Loeb as the best pure driver out there right now. Raikkonen & Schumacher are right behind. Fernando Alonso, a notch below. Schumacher’s magic qualy lap at the Hungaroring showed he’s still got it when the car is there.
It’ll certainly be something to watch if Rossi does switch to four wheels come 2007. A Raikkonen-Rossi pairing at Ferrari perhaps? Watch out…
I think in Tony’s case it’s probably more of a “one too many trips to the Dairy Queen” belly.
He’s still incredibly impressive. I’m convinced you could put him on anything with wheels and a motor and he’d win. I’d love to see him get an F1 test.
Who cares? F1 is the pinicle. Everything else is Jr. League. Besides, how do you think he got there?
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If you put Schumi and Tony Stewart in equally matched non-F1 cars, Stewart beats him. Doesn’t matter if it’s asphalt or dirt, oval or road course.
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So the farce that was the US GP this year wasn’t “junior league?”
F1 is the pinnacle of racing only if you enjoy watching cars that cost more than the GNP of Bermuda parade around for 3 hours. There’s no passing, and 9/10 of the time the race is won in qualifying.
And as far as rally racing in America, the closest most people come to caring is when they buy a Subaru sport wagon. The fact that the FIA can’t be bothered to schedule an American event is proof that 99% of Americans don’t have any interest in it.
The Olympus Rally (in the area around Olympia, Washington) was on the world championship calendar for a few years in the mid-80’s. (I worked on a few of them.) Toyota backed it pretty heavily, but it just wasn’t really popular enough to draw the spectators, sponsors and teams.
I would say that F1 is the pinnacle for drivers, if not for spectators. Just about every driver would like to get there; to drive the most advanced cars and cash the most advanced paychecks.
He’s on a great run, at the moment, but I can’t call Tony Stewart the best racer in the world. His successes (in NASCAR and other series) have been sporadic, and NASCAR’s style is too specific for me to think his talent would necessarily translate to other forms. He’s great at what he does, but I’m not convinced he’d be great at what other people do.
