What is the most difficult form of motorsport?
Reilly Brennan
I end up debating this all the time. I don't think we'll ever come to an answer, but I believe endurance sports car racing is the most difficult for the following reasons:
- Long periods in the car, with multiple sessions (different conditions)
- Multiple drivers (creates for an interesting setup of the car, and the occassional fight)
- Lots of drivers of various skills (gentlemen drivers who can't handle the full event)
What do you think?
- Discuss (18 comments)
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Steven J. Ewing
I think any sort of endurance race is the hardest. Even the slightest amount of fatigue can result in a crash.
Steven J. Ewing
Production Assistant
Winding Road / NextAutos.com
Chris Paukert
My vote is for rallying. There's a frightening about of skill that goes into driving cars sideways through forests and the like. While looking out the side window. At ludicrous velocities. Over a course that they *may* have seen once before.
Factor in that you're counting on your co-driver's notebook for directions (and his ability to read it despite the fact that his brain is sloshing around and his spinal cord is threatening to poke a hole through the back of his head), and that you're covering long distances (often far away from civilization and medical help), and you've got a recipe for the most difficult form of motorsports.
Doing all of this on a motorcycle (sans co-driver) is probably tougher still.
Chris Paukert
Editor-In-Chief
Winding Road // NextAutos
Seyth Miersma
Formula 1 is still at the top. F1 drivers can 'retire' to drive sports cars, race at Le Mans, drive stock cars, etc. Rarely does it go the other way. I'm not naive enough to think that there's not a lot of politicking involved in the F1 selection process as well but real talent usually finds its way to the top.
WRC drivers are super talented and super crazy. There might be an argument there.
Seyth Miersma
News Writer
Winding Road // NextAutos
Reilly Brennan
I think Chris is right about rallying. The codriver must be the most insane person in the world.
But I still think endurance racing is the most difficult.
c.j.lingo
If you really want someone who qualifies as insane try the Monkey on a motorcycle sidecar racing team. He, or she, is the person who crawls around to hang off of the inside of the rig on a curve and just tries to disappear on the straightaway.
tbmshark
How about a combination of endurance racing and rally: The Dakar. It's longer than any endurance sportscar race, the terrain is even more unknown than most rallies, and not only are you extremely far from civilization and medical help, but you are probably closer to roving bands of thieves and/or terrorists (the event was cancelled this year due to threats from terrorist organizations).
Steve
I think that largely depends on your definition of "difficult."
If you're thinking in terms of harshest on the driver, most physically demanding, and toughest on the machinery... then something along the lines of Dakar or Baja wins hands down.
If you're thinking in terms of hardest-to-do, I think that's F1 without a nearby competitor... Except for possibly Moto GP. The seat-of-the-pants butt-meter that you need for those two is beyond compare, the physical abuse the driver takes is beyond compare (5+ g's? ridiculous), and being open wheelers, they are very, very unforgiving.
Yep... I say F1 or Dakar. WRC is something that, as Seyth said, F1 drivers retire to.
Anonymous
Rallying, without no doubt. Endurance race is tough basically for the time spent driving, but rallyes sum up everything: all kind of surfaces, compromised tire choose because of that with the added problem of the unpredictability of the weather, barely cognition of the stages due to the very restricted training days, and so on. My respect for the endurance racers is deep but as Michael Schumacher said once: "a good f1 racer may not be a good rally driver, but a good rally driver will be a good f1 racer for sure".
Steve
You got that quote dead backwards there, big guy. Schumi did say that, but said it the other way. Any of the current crop of F1 drivers could go into WRC and do just fine (See Mika). Ever noticed how F1 drivers "retire" into other series when they can no longer cut it in F1? Never seen anyone retire from WRC/DTM/Enduro/NASCAR into F1, have ya? :-)
"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”
- Ernest Hemingway
Anonymous
Gotta be NASCAR. Stick with me here:
In F1 you are constantly on a knife edge and in a state of hyper-awareness. You don't have a moments rest and your heart is racing at the thrill of it all.
In endurance sports car racing you have to be able to fight off fatigue while piloting a precision instrument through the dark of night with cars of various capabilities mixed together on the track and your heart is racing at the thrill of it all.
In WRC you're in constant terror of a large boulder or tree jumping out in front of you while negotiating a narrow dirt trail at triple digit speed, and your heart is racing at the thrill of it all.
But in NASCAR you have to fight off the sheer boredom of just turning left all the time for 4 hours. I hate being bored. Boredom is hard. I like to think I'm a pretty capable kinda guy. I could do all the others, or at least give 'em the old college try. But I just couldn't do NASCAR.
tbmshark
Word.
Steve
Hahah. Well spoken.
"There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”
- Ernest Hemingway
JWBrothers
Anonymous is showing his stupidity. What he says is like saying Off Road is easy because you don't have to follow the road or F! is boring because the cars practicaly drive themselves. (sadly shaking my head)
Many Thanks
Jim
Anonymous
JWBrothers, if you're referring to the "Gotta be NASCAR" post then you missed the tongue-in-cheek point by a mile.
Anonymous
Thanks for the original post. I laughed for a few minutes (and was totally sucked in by the first sentence).
Dave B.
WRC