Combining Sportscars and Single Seaters

[FEUsmart]

How easy do you think it is to combine a season of Sportscars and single seaters? I've noticed a lot of F3000 drivers are trying their hands at GT's and Le Mans type things, with varying levels of success.

Justin Wilson and Tomas Enge showed very strongly in the FIA GT chapmpionship at Magny Cours, finishing third in class, Joel Camathias, also from F3000 was driving too, although didn't finish. Sebastien Bourdais is competing in a sportscar series, in preparation for Le Mans.

Does this dilute a driver's efforts? It is easy to just swap from one type of car to another without effecting you style in the other car?

I seem to remember Webber testing F1 in the year he did his Mercedes sportscar thing, and finding it pretty difficult.

[pink69]

To be fair , F1 cars are alittle faster than F3000 cars and GT cars so it wouldn't surpise me if he did find it hard. Plus , it was his fisrt season testing an F1 car.

[KC]

I think the biggest stumbling block to a front line F1 or CART driver taking on Sportscars comes from the very restrictive contracts they have with their teams. A few drivers venture each year to the Rolex, Max Papis comes to mind, but most are not allowed to do dangerous undertakings during the racing season by contract.

[FEUsmart]

Ah-ha! I've just remembered the point I was trying to make in the original post:

[FEUsmart]

D'oh!

Anyway, as I was saying, according to Paddock Spy, Mark Webber did several days in an F1 car around the Barcelona circuit leading up to the race there (I thought F1 teams could only test on circuits after they'd raced on them...) yet, considering he'd had so much mileage there, he still couldn't put in a decent qualifyer in F3000.

So....

Can a driver just swap and change between totally different machines with no adverse effect on his performance in either?

I *think* that was the point I was originally trying to get at.

[KC]

I think so. We have all seen how a driver can move from a lesser formula car to more powerful sports cars and then go back with no problem. The F1 guys do the occasional charitable kart race and then go back to their powerful machines. I think any decent driver should be able to cross over.