Is it just me or is the Indy Car series a bit amateurish compared to F1? There are CAREER Indy Car racers, and I feel like they'll never be on par with the first-year F1 drivers. I mean, watching the Toronto Indy--same kind of tight street-track of Montreal, and they had FOUR cautions in the first 1/3 of the race.

And the Indy 500? All the issues in the pits?! Seriously-- I thought these guys (girls) were pro's? I feel like you see better racing and coordination at Super Lap Battle's, HPDE's and NASA events than these has-been's


/rant

on

 

perhaps you might want to review the technical differences between F1 and Cart.

start with the brakes and go from there.
a frugal cart team might be able to run for a season on the money that Ferrari or Mclaren blows getting ready for one race.

 

the cars may look the same to the untrained eye, but everything is totally different, from the tip of the nose to the um... back of the car

 

Didn't Monaco have four Safety Car deployments this year?
And didn't only half of the 24 starters finished the race?
I think you're just confused because you saw the Indy race today, so it's fresh in your mind.
Go back and review some of the Turn 1 incidents at the start of F1 races, and other crashes that didn't lead to a SC per F1 regs but would have at an Indy race, and I suspect you'll find it all quite amateurish as well, if crashes and loss of car control are some of your criteria.

 

I've seen plenty of Indy Car races. Also, I'm not a moron, I know there's differences. But my statement stills tands.

 

No one is calling you a moron. But you have to understand that there is huge gap between of IRL and F1. A lot of these drivers are starting to experience single seaters competively. That's why most of the winners are drivers from other countries. They have way better single seater programs. If you want to compare on driver skill level then you should compare F3000, Super Formula League, and maybe the lower table GP2 drivers.

 

Maybe so. But in my original statement I pointed out career IRL racers (Tracy, Kanann [sp?]) and a few others.

I know it's apples to oranges, but I can't help but question why it's so popular, when I think it's quite amateurish

 

Again, back to my point - if you do a quantitative analysis of crashes and pit incidents, which seems to be your basis for calling IRL "amateurish," I suspect you'll find F1 and IRL are very similar. You simply saw an IRL race more recently, so it sticks out in your mind to a greater degree.

 

IRL is IRL. It is fun. Definitely not F1. It does not have the budget nor the resources to be on par with F1.

As far as CART/IRL talent in F1. I think the good ones can mix it up with the best. Bourdais did not have a dream ride in F1 but was rather stuck with a backmarker team and maybe the car was not set up to his liking ever. He has however done very well in Le Mans.

Mario Andretti has done well in all forms and he is a local talent, if I may call him that. Will Power is exciting and to me looks like he could do well in F1 given the right opportunity.

All said and done, IRL is a spec series and it's image is that of a poor man's F1. Imagine having Toyota Camry or Honda Accord pace/safey cars in F1

 

Also are Jamie Alguersari, Vitaly Petrov, and Sakon Yamamoto way better than their IRL peers? I think not. IMHO, they are on par with the Milka Duno's and other backmarkers in IRL.