J. Stewart vs. Raikkonen vs. Massa. vs. Ham vs. Blun etc

[PiB]

In no particular order but could all the pundits and drivers just get together and have a get go!?

I guess what i'm trying to say is could the big oldster mouths race against the current guys and win? I guess I didn't have the perfect list in the subject.

In the current cars? Granted i wouldn't expect a 70 year old to be competitive but does he have an idea of how hard it is to drive these cars? What was the fastest car Stewart drove lately? An F40?

Agree with him on the state of F1 management - not trying to attach him there. just saying . . .


Prepared to be schooled

[clonmult]

Stick 'em all in a reasonably priced car, maybe something like a Liana, and see how they go. Totally level playing field, and it'll all be down to driver skill at the end of the day.

Reckon it would be reasonably close, and I seriously doubt that JYS would be at the back of the pack.

Edited by clonmult on Wednesday 7th January 11:34

[flemke]

In a recent PH thread on another subject, I recalled this:

flemke said:

A few years ago, when he was one of the fastest F1 drivers, there was a great magazine interview with JP Montoya.
In it, he related the anecdote that recently he had been at some sponsor's day at a circuit. He and Jackie Stewart were the featured guests. They were taking the punters out for pax rides in a saloon, but first there was a little contest between the two of them to see who could set the faster benchmark time.
Each went out with the other as his passenger. Stewart was first. Montoya said that, after a few warm-up laps, it was time for Stewart to go for it.
Montoya said that he was taken by surprise that Stewart was driving so slowly. He particularly noticed, he said, how slow Stewart's gear changes were. Montoya said that, as he observed this, he actually felt sorry for Stewart. It was a sad thing, he said, that a former 3-times champion's speed had declined so far.
After a couple of Stewart's "fast" laps, Stewart came in and they swapped seats. Montoya said that now the bit was between his teeth. Stewart had shown him what he could do, and now the young Turk wanted to demonstrate how the game had moved on in the last thirty years.
After his warm-up laps, Montoya really went for it. He said that he pushed the car to its absolute limits. That included Montoya's ramming aggressively through the gears, not lazily snicking them in Stewart's chauffeur style. From the passenger seat, Stewart stayed quiet.
Montoya completed some laps which he knew were as fast as could have done. He then brought the car back into the pit lane, eager to learn what was the difference between his lap times and those of the old man.
The gap between Montoya's fastest lap and Stewart's fastest was 0.8 seconds. Not bad - except that the fastest laps had been Stewart's.

[dpbird90]

I think Sir Jackie would run rings round most of them. There was a thing on TG a while back, when he tried to help James May get within a couple of seconds of a time he set, and succeeded. May said before JYS' lap: "remember, Jackie is approaching 70, but nobody seems to have told him"
He went on to set an unbelieveable time, which was about 30 seconds quicker than May could do. He then helped May get 25 seconds off his time.
But sticking them in modern F1 cars wouldn't be practical, as it's said, JYS is 70 now, and I would love to see his health insurance premium if he wanted to do something like that. Stick them all in 1 litre shopping trolley cars, perhaps some rusty old Metro's. Seeing the world's best drivers in stboxes is huge fun. I remember a while ago on Vroom Vroom (Sky1's cheap and very nasty TG ripoff) they had an old lady in a 350Z vs Perry Mcarthy (original black suited Stig) in a "typical granny car" 1980 1 litre Polo. Needless to say, he wiped the floor with her on the track, but seeing him fling the old stbox around is truely amazing.

[williamp]

If you take all the surviving f1 champions, excluding the very recent the competition would be very interesting:

Brabham
Surtees
Stewart
fittipaldi
lauda
Andretti
Sheckther
Jones
Piquet
Rosberg
Prost
Mansell
Hill
Viellneuve
( exclude schumacher, Alonso, Hakkinen, Raikkkonen and hamilton as these still drive competitively)

My money would be on Stewart, mansell or lauda

[RacerMDR]

give them all Caterhams.........

[Alfanatic]

williamp said:

If you take all the surviving f1 champions, excluding the very recent the competition would be very interesting:

Brabham
Surtees
Stewart
fittipaldi
lauda
Andretti
Sheckther
Jones
Piquet
Rosberg
Prost
Mansell
Hill
Viellneuve
( exclude schumacher, Alonso, Hakkinen, Raikkkonen and hamilton as these still drive competitively)

My money would be on Stewart, mansell or lauda

Yep. Mansell looked really quick on those two F1 veteran races I saw. Then again, I'd also expect Prost and Fittipaldi to be quick, and wouldn't be surprised if Andretti impressed as well, simply because he succeeded in a number of very different types of cars.

[andyps]

flemke said:

In a recent PH thread on another subject, I recalled this:

flemke said:

A few years ago, when he was one of the fastest F1 drivers, there was a great magazine interview with JP Montoya.
In it, he related the anecdote that recently he had been at some sponsor's day at a circuit. He and Jackie Stewart were the featured guests. They were taking the punters out for pax rides in a saloon, but first there was a little contest between the two of them to see who could set the faster benchmark time.
Each went out with the other as his passenger. Stewart was first. Montoya said that, after a few warm-up laps, it was time for Stewart to go for it.
Montoya said that he was taken by surprise that Stewart was driving so slowly. He particularly noticed, he said, how slow Stewart's gear changes were. Montoya said that, as he observed this, he actually felt sorry for Stewart. It was a sad thing, he said, that a former 3-times champion's speed had declined so far.
After a couple of Stewart's "fast" laps, Stewart came in and they swapped seats. Montoya said that now the bit was between his teeth. Stewart had shown him what he could do, and now the young Turk wanted to demonstrate how the game had moved on in the last thirty years.
After his warm-up laps, Montoya really went for it. He said that he pushed the car to its absolute limits. That included Montoya's ramming aggressively through the gears, not lazily snicking them in Stewart's chauffeur style. From the passenger seat, Stewart stayed quiet.
Montoya completed some laps which he knew were as fast as could have done. He then brought the car back into the pit lane, eager to learn what was the difference between his lap times and those of the old man.
The gap between Montoya's fastest lap and Stewart's fastest was 0.8 seconds. Not bad - except that the fastest laps had been Stewart's.

I haven't heard that before and missed it on the other thread - a great story. And well done to Montoya for having the balls to reveal it.

I think using a modern F1 car would be unfair, but there are plenty of other appropriate vehicles.

[flemke]

Alfanatic said:

...wouldn't be surprised if Andretti impressed as well, simply because he succeeded in a number of very different types of cars.

Oh, yeah.
Do you remember in 2003, when Mario was putting in competitve, 220mph laps at Indy in order to help Michael get his car sorted?:

http://www.indy500.com/news/1188/Mario__No_Regrets...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kMeE9NAh60I

At the time, he was only 63 years old.

One of the all-time greats.

[IanMorewood]

All extremely talented drivers, give them identical cars/circuit and conditions and you would have an interesting list, bet there wouldn’t be more than a couple of seconds in it though between the quickest and slowest.

[mchammer89]

RacerMDR said:

give them all Caterhams.........

+1

[FourWheelDrift]

andyps said:

flemke said:

In a recent PH thread on another subject, I recalled this:

flemke said:

A few years ago, when he was one of the fastest F1 drivers, there was a great magazine interview with JP Montoya.
In it, he related the anecdote that recently he had been at some sponsor's day at a circuit. He and Jackie Stewart were the featured guests. They were taking the punters out for pax rides in a saloon, but first there was a little contest between the two of them to see who could set the faster benchmark time.
Each went out with the other as his passenger. Stewart was first. Montoya said that, after a few warm-up laps, it was time for Stewart to go for it.
Montoya said that he was taken by surprise that Stewart was driving so slowly. He particularly noticed, he said, how slow Stewart's gear changes were. Montoya said that, as he observed this, he actually felt sorry for Stewart. It was a sad thing, he said, that a former 3-times champion's speed had declined so far.
After a couple of Stewart's "fast" laps, Stewart came in and they swapped seats. Montoya said that now the bit was between his teeth. Stewart had shown him what he could do, and now the young Turk wanted to demonstrate how the game had moved on in the last thirty years.
After his warm-up laps, Montoya really went for it. He said that he pushed the car to its absolute limits. That included Montoya's ramming aggressively through the gears, not lazily snicking them in Stewart's chauffeur style. From the passenger seat, Stewart stayed quiet.
Montoya completed some laps which he knew were as fast as could have done. He then brought the car back into the pit lane, eager to learn what was the difference between his lap times and those of the old man.
The gap between Montoya's fastest lap and Stewart's fastest was 0.8 seconds. Not bad - except that the fastest laps had been Stewart's.

I haven't heard that before and missed it on the other thread - a great story. And well done to Montoya for having the balls to reveal it.

From the Roman Polanski film Weekend of a Champion (which I now luckily have a copy of)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OgSiK_VarK8

I learnt a lot from him and this is a great example, watch it.

[heebeegeetee]

flemke said:

In a recent PH thread on another subject, I recalled this:

flemke said:

A few years ago, when he was one of the fastest F1 drivers, there was a great magazine interview with JP Montoya.
In it, he related the anecdote that recently he had been at some sponsor's day at a circuit. He and Jackie Stewart were the featured guests. They were taking the punters out for pax rides in a saloon, but first there was a little contest between the two of them to see who could set the faster benchmark time.
Each went out with the other as his passenger. Stewart was first. Montoya said that, after a few warm-up laps, it was time for Stewart to go for it.
Montoya said that he was taken by surprise that Stewart was driving so slowly. He particularly noticed, he said, how slow Stewart's gear changes were. Montoya said that, as he observed this, he actually felt sorry for Stewart. It was a sad thing, he said, that a former 3-times champion's speed had declined so far.
After a couple of Stewart's "fast" laps, Stewart came in and they swapped seats. Montoya said that now the bit was between his teeth. Stewart had shown him what he could do, and now the young Turk wanted to demonstrate how the game had moved on in the last thirty years.
After his warm-up laps, Montoya really went for it. He said that he pushed the car to its absolute limits. That included Montoya's ramming aggressively through the gears, not lazily snicking them in Stewart's chauffeur style. From the passenger seat, Stewart stayed quiet.
Montoya completed some laps which he knew were as fast as could have done. He then brought the car back into the pit lane, eager to learn what was the difference between his lap times and those of the old man.
The gap between Montoya's fastest lap and Stewart's fastest was 0.8 seconds. Not bad - except that the fastest laps had been Stewart's.

Priceless!

Thing to think about though, all the modern drivers have only ever know one thing, in a way: grip. Masses of it, and the further up the chain they went the more they got.

If you put an old driver in a modern car i don't think they'd get anywhere near the times the current drivers do. I would cite dear old Stirling Moss and his miserable experience when he decided to race Audi 80s in the er, '80s. Was it the BTCC?

However if you put them all in something with little grip then the picture would be less clear, which is possibly why Montoya was beaten by Stewart in a saloon car. Is that story true, btw? It's a cracker if it is.

PS. Derek Bell was way quicker in the race at le Mans in the Harrods Mclaren in the '90s, especially when it rained. That was down to experience and race craft i would have thought though.

[chevronb37]

Brabham - Very ill these days.
Surtees - Too old, but his son Henry wouldn't be a bad bet
Stewart - Would be hugely quick in anything without big downforce
Fittipaldi - As above, but include big downforce
Lauda - Doubt he could be bothered now, but he is a determined character
Andretti - Amazing guy. Would still be competitive in a GP Masters or whatever
Scheckter - Too busy making money
Jones - Woefully out of shape
Piquet - Valuable, but for humour only I fear
Rosberg - Was mediocre in Class 1 Touring Cars in the mid-1990s
Prost - Still winning ice races. Would be phenomenal
Mansell - Utterly determined. Probably the most likely to succeed
Hill - Lost his spark in my opinion
Villeneuve - Journeyman now but setting competitive times in Speedcar. I still don't know about this guy.

If it was in GP Masters-type high downforce cars, my money would be on Mansell. Other wise maybe Stewart, Fittipaldi or Andretti.

[stifler]

Moss has always said that the reason he did not do so well in the audi 80s was because he was used to gentlemanly racing whereas the other drivers were using eachother as brakes!

[chevronb37]

stifler said:

Moss has always said that the reason he did not do so well in the audi 80s was because he was used to gentlemanly racing whereas the other drivers were using eachother as brakes!

That was a particularly sorry period for him. Unfortunately Brundle was just plain quicker than him as well when they were team mates. He is a tidy driver in historics and had that amazing race in the 250F at Goodwood a few years ago, but he was never the same guy after the 1961 crash.

[aeropilot]

For those of us old enough to remember, bring back the old BBC TV Rallysprint events from the late 1970's, early 1980's....
For those not old enought it pitted F1 drivers, rally drivers, saloon racers etc in a multi-discipline event consisting of an autotest, rally stage and a race in virtually standard road cars...

Oh happy days......

[SlipStream77]

Many PH'ers will know about the race held by Mercedes Benz at the Nurgurgring GP track in 1984.
They invited stars of F1 past and present to take part in the event which involved racing the newly released 190E 2.3-16.

The driver line up included several world champions, but there was one non F1 driver invited and he went on to win the race. His name - Ayrton Senna.

[MrKipling43]

FourWheelDrift said:

From the Roman Polanski film Weekend of a Champion (which I now luckily have a copy of)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OgSiK_VarK8

I learnt a lot from him and this is a great example, watch it.

I simply cannot sufficiently convey how much I enjoyed that interview. He so eloquent and passionate about the art of driving and what he describes - all the stuff about being as kind and as gentle to the car as you can, smoothness and so on - exactly how I try to drive a car, all the time, whether I'm on a race track or going to the shops.

heebeegeetee said:

flemke said:

In a recent PH thread on another subject, I recalled this:

flemke said:

Montoya story

Priceless!

That is a cracker, I've not heard that before.

I remember a chap I used to work with telling me about being on a rather brisk lap of Silverstone with the not-too-shabby Jonathan Palmer, only to have Jackie Stewart go drifting by around the outside at Copse. Apparently Palmer simply grinned and said, "I hate it when he does that."

[andyps]

heebeegeetee said:

I would cite dear old Stirling Moss and his miserable experience when he decided to race Audi 80s in the er, '80s. Was it the BTCC?

My abiding memory of that was standing at Old Hall corner at Oulton Park on the Thursday watching practice for the Good Friday meeting and seeing Sterling rounding the corner on three wheels with his right elbow on the window ledge whilst rubbing his nose - he was all of a second off the pace of the top cars that day, but made it look effortless.