We're going to have to agree to disagree. I've driven both ovals and road courses. I've done laps in both a Formula Atlantic car and a "detuned" stock car. There is just no comparison at any level. The sheer physical toll enacted on your body, alone, is enough to separate the two. That is not to say one is "better" than the other, but I have no doubt that transitioning from F1 to NASCAR is much easier than the inverse.
Going around an oval, in a banked corner, you are subjected to what... 1-2 lateral G's? Maybe 3 at most? Some tracks on the F1 circuit result in G forces closer to F16's than cars. After all, a modern F1 car is, for all intents and purposes, an upside-down airplane. The faster you go, the more downforce you generate and the higher your aerodynamic grip. The higher your level of grip, the higher the limit of adhesion and the greater the forces to which the driver is subjected. There is a reason these guys look exhausted after a race and there is a reason they don't go 500 miles. The human body couldn't take that level of punishment for that length of time.
In a Winston Cup car, you have a steering wheel, a gear lever and three pedals. In a Formula 1 car, you have a steering wheel, a sequential-manual gearbox and controls for myriad other adjustments to the car. KERS (power boost), DRS (rear wing deflection adjustment), brake bias, etc, etc. All of these things are adjusted on the fly, constantly. The workload is massively increased.
Just think of the complications of DRS for a moment. If you have any track experience, you can imagine how difficult it would be to manage the immediate removal of a couple hundred pounds of downforce on the rear of a mid-engined car; only to then have it slapped back down in milliseconds. The entire behavior of the vehicle is altered. All of us arm-chair quarterbacks would spin, based upon DRS management alone, going in a straight line.
Head on over to www.F1.com, sign up for an account and watch some of the older videos... these guys are, quite literally, adjusting F/R brake bias in every single braking zone for that extra 0.0001 of a second based on a dozen variables specific to that specific turn-in. This is why Gordon received a "protected" F1 car for his publicity stunt.
There is absolutely no doubt that Gordan is unbelievably talented; as are all professional drivers, regardless of where they race, but everything happens faster in a an F1 car; by multiples... even the most seasoned of drivers, when they first sit in the cockpit and go for a lap, can be overwhelmed very quickly. The thought process needs to go from 'holy crap fast' to 'are you kidding me? fast'
Again, please don't construe any of this as a hit on NASCAR. I appreciate all forms of motorsport... but proclaiming that Scuderia Ferrari's F1 Champion is somehow going to need instruction manuals and diapers to run a stock car at Daytona is just silly. In comparison to his history in F1 and WRC, NASCAR is going to seem like slow-motion to Kimi.
I completely agree they are 2 completely different disciplines. But you made my point for me. In F1 the driver can constantly tune his car on the track to his liking. In NASCAR the driver has to know how to manage his machine and conserve his resources to the next pit where adjustments can be made. That is where open wheel drivers have trouble when crossing over. It's a different strategy to learn at 200 going into turn 1, 3 wide.
Yes F1 cars create more downforce at speed and thus more G's in the turns at high speed. They cancelled the CART race at Texas Motor Speedway due to that. Drivers were getting G-lock in turns 1 & 3. Does that make an oval bad? No, it just means you need a bigger oval like Michigan, California, Talladega or Daytona. I'd throw Indy in there, but it's not really an oval.
Again, I love all forms of racing and I'd love to see a NASCAR roadrace from Reno to Vegas. Now that would be entertaining.
