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I was just kidding, schumacher is a great driver, but he isn't the best driver out there. If you think about it, I would have to say WRC drivers are better then him..(well, the top ones like solberg). He has been racing over the same courses his entire life. They are exactly the same all the time for him! Yet, for WRC guys, they are different each year and each day with new terrain that they have to anticpate. I would love to see how well schumacher could handle the cars as well as the WRC drivers do.
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APAC102 -A bit of oversimplification don't you think?
"He has been racing over the same courses his entire life. They are exactly the same all the time for him!" - There have been new F1 circuits over the last couple years - Indy, Sepang, Bahrain, Nurburgring, Hockenheim (after the transformation). And on other circuits there have been changes over the last ten years wrt to adding chicanes, changing the corners, etc.
"Yet, for WRC guys, they are different each year and each day with new terrain that they have to anticpate." - The WRC drivers have pace notes for all the circuits and they are allowed to do recce sessions to get some familiarity with the new sections. And good chunk of the circuit that remains same from year to year.
It would support your point here if the WRC drivers went into each race blind - meaning no pace notes - but this does not happen.
As has been mentioned by the others, F1 and WRC are worlds apart and direct comparison is futile
I admit that WRC throws more variables at the driver - changing surfaces, drastically different weather from hour to hour, longer race durations - requires them to maintain 100% concentration for several hours.
So with all the above factors it is easy for one to immediately conclude that WRC is the best disciple around. However, I dont agree with this.
I think all these factors mean is that a newcomer will take longer to become a master in WRC than F1.
F1- It takes about 2 years for someone to become proficient in F1. It takes one year to learn the circuit and about 2 years to learn how to deal with the nuances of set-up and other aspects that make one a potential winner. However, all this does not make one a Schumacher. It takes skill, experience, car performance to win championships the way he did.
WRC - It will take several more years to become proficient here. Most of the drivers rgo through a couple years of the junior rally tier and even WRC learning the circuits before they can hope to be championship contenders. Thus the top contenders are much older than the equivalent F1 counterparts
However, once a person has the experience of a Petter Solberg I think it is the same challenge as it is to Michael Schumacher in his arena.
Petter will have clearly understood what it takes to succeed in snow, or gravel or tarmac and it becomes routine to him.