Why don't more F1 drivers race at Le Mans
Discussion
Once upon a time...
But it appears lately contracts, sponsor committments, and F1 team managers have put a stop to it. Plus Le Mans until Audi starting winning, had fallen out of favour to a degree, its having quite a renaissance, maybe things will change, if F1 teams have a lot of spare cash and facility if the new F1 cap rules come to fruition (maybe not).
But it appears lately contracts, sponsor committments, and F1 team managers have put a stop to it. Plus Le Mans until Audi starting winning, had fallen out of favour to a degree, its having quite a renaissance, maybe things will change, if F1 teams have a lot of spare cash and facility if the new F1 cap rules come to fruition (maybe not).
Very few non manufacturer teams in F1, for example a Ferrari F1 driver would not drive for anyone else except Ferrari at Le Mans, they only race in GT2 so it's not really big enough for them. Mercedes don't do Le Mans, neither do BMW, Renault, or Toyota so none of those F1 drivers will do it. What you have left are a small group of 8 drivers from Torro Rosso, Williams, Red Bull and Force India. Some have done it already (like Webber), some choose not to and some choose to do it (like Bourdais).
Alfa_75_Steve said:
stifler said:
Contractual clauses. A sad state of affairs. 
Why do you say that?It's no surprise that anyone paying an employee tens of millions a year would want to ensure said employee wasn't going to get injured 'moonlighting'....
FourWheelDrift said:
Very few non manufacturer teams in F1, for example a Ferrari F1 driver would not drive for anyone else except Ferrari at Le Mans...
Is that definitely so? Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard are current Porsche factory drivers who spent the last two years racing against Audi and are now racing for Audi as well.SamHH said:
FourWheelDrift said:
Very few non manufacturer teams in F1, for example a Ferrari F1 driver would not drive for anyone else except Ferrari at Le Mans...
Is that definitely so? Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard are current Porsche factory drivers who spent the last two years racing against Audi and are now racing for Audi as well.
tmk2 said:
Just been watching the qualifying and only Bourdais is from F1. Just think it would be great if more of the F1 drivers get involved as the are supposed to be the best in the world.
These current F1 test/third drivers are involved:Christian Klien (7 Peugeot) - BMW Sauber
Anthony Davidson (008 Aston Martin) - Brawn GP
Alexander Wurz (9 Peugeot) - Brawn GP
Marc Gene (9 Peugeot) - Ferrari
... and many more ex-drivers.
Yes, it would be nice to see more of the racing drivers from F1. But their teams want them preserved for F1 races.
Interestingly, the dominant Audi teams have only a few drivers from F1, while Peugeot's majority of drivers have F1 backgrounds.
Edited by Jungles on Friday 12th June 00:03
The era of the multi-discipline racer was pretty much ended with Stefan Bellof's fatal Group C crash at Spa in '85. At the time he was also driving in F1 for Tyrell. From then on, F1 driver contracts outlawed virtually all non-F1 racing activity.
Re 2009; Bourdais is an old hand at endurance racing, he might have already had his LM drive lined-up before signing for Toro Rosso. As I understand it, Bourdais brings with him a lot of sponsorship so that could have swayed his dual LM/F1 contract negotiations.
There are a few instances in recent years of drivers competing in F1 & LM simultaneously. Most notable successes being Johnny Herbert who drove for Mazda at Le Mans in 1991 & 1992, winning the 1991 race whilst also driving for Team Lotus in F1. Eddie Irvine finished second at LM in 1994 for Toyota whilst also driving for Jordan in F1. Mark Blundell finished 4th at Le Mans in a McLaren F1 GTR and drove for Team McLaren in F1 for the 1995 season. Semi-active in F1, Alex Wurz was Williams' F1 test-driver when he won the 1996 Le Mans race with Porsche. Wurz also raced for Peugeot in 2008, putting the 908 on pole too IIRC whilst serving as Honda's third driver in F1.
And not forgetting the then (& current) reigning World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb, who finished second at Le Mans in 2006 driving a Pescarolo-Judd.
Re 2009; Bourdais is an old hand at endurance racing, he might have already had his LM drive lined-up before signing for Toro Rosso. As I understand it, Bourdais brings with him a lot of sponsorship so that could have swayed his dual LM/F1 contract negotiations.
There are a few instances in recent years of drivers competing in F1 & LM simultaneously. Most notable successes being Johnny Herbert who drove for Mazda at Le Mans in 1991 & 1992, winning the 1991 race whilst also driving for Team Lotus in F1. Eddie Irvine finished second at LM in 1994 for Toyota whilst also driving for Jordan in F1. Mark Blundell finished 4th at Le Mans in a McLaren F1 GTR and drove for Team McLaren in F1 for the 1995 season. Semi-active in F1, Alex Wurz was Williams' F1 test-driver when he won the 1996 Le Mans race with Porsche. Wurz also raced for Peugeot in 2008, putting the 908 on pole too IIRC whilst serving as Honda's third driver in F1.
And not forgetting the then (& current) reigning World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb, who finished second at Le Mans in 2006 driving a Pescarolo-Judd.
There is also of course, that it's one thing to race for an hour and a half then not have to do it again for two or three weeks, and quite another to race for eight hours out of 24. It's quite a different discipline; in the same way that Porsche have won Le Mans more than any other manufacturer but only ever one F1 race, Chris Amon never won a single F1 race.
To my mind it's one of the things that made the old greats "great". Jim Clark could and did drive any car and win. Graham Hill has won the world championship and Indianapolis. Micheal Schumacher came up through sports car racing, driving the Mercedes "junior" team (I watched him spin at Le Mans, oh happy days) but when he reached F1 he turned his back on it.
I think it is a real shame that modern F1 drivers have become so polarised, we never really get to see how verstaile they can be in different machinery.
In previous years Le Mans has clashed with a Grand Prix but this year it falls on a weekend between so enabling drivers to partake. They have not even got the testing commitments they used to have. Don't they get bored? Again, harking back to the "good" old days, all a racing driver needed was an excuse to race.
Of course kimi Raikonnen is a notable exception.
I think it is a real shame that modern F1 drivers have become so polarised, we never really get to see how verstaile they can be in different machinery.
In previous years Le Mans has clashed with a Grand Prix but this year it falls on a weekend between so enabling drivers to partake. They have not even got the testing commitments they used to have. Don't they get bored? Again, harking back to the "good" old days, all a racing driver needed was an excuse to race.
Of course kimi Raikonnen is a notable exception.
In Stirling Moss final full year of racing (1961), he took part in 60 races.
Modern F1 drivers take part in 17 or 18 races in total each year (setting aside the odd charity karting event).
However, they are still very busy chaps as they have to devote a lot of their time to spnsorhip and other commercial, but non-driving, commitments.
I too think it is a sad state of affairs and really does mean that we can never compare modern F1 drivers with their counterparts from the past.
Modern F1 drivers take part in 17 or 18 races in total each year (setting aside the odd charity karting event).
However, they are still very busy chaps as they have to devote a lot of their time to spnsorhip and other commercial, but non-driving, commitments.
I too think it is a sad state of affairs and really does mean that we can never compare modern F1 drivers with their counterparts from the past.
FourWheelDrift said:
Because this was a thread about F1 drivers. Besides their contracts will be tighter as already mentioned.
OK, I was questioning the assertion that F1 drivers are contractually disallowed from competing for other car manufacturers, given that, presumably, none of us actually know what their contracts say. The fact that car manufacturers in other disciplines let their factory drivers race for each other, that an F1 car manufacturer allows their customer race driver to compete for another manufacturer and that F1 car manufacturers allow their factory test drivers compete for another manufacturer suggests that maybe it's not the case. IMO .Gassing Station | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff