Telling Team Cars and Teammates Apart

[JohnBM01]

One thing about most types of racing- great action. Another thing about most types of racing- a sense of teamwork. No, not just on the track, but also in the pits, preliminary runs, and more. Sometimes, it's easy to tell who are teammates on track. Other times, it can be quite hard. So I developed this topic out of special interest. How do you tell one team member from another? How do you know who is in the car if a race entails driver changes? Let's say that you can only tell by a few different cues. Sometimes from a distance, it can be tough to tell, for example, Michael Schumacher from Rubens Barichello. I can't tell whose helmet is whom. Remember the lovely Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR race cars? In one of my "Road and Track" magazines, it featured not one, but two of them. They were a little easy to tell. One silver CLK-GTR had red side mirrors, while another had yellow side mirrors. I think Klaus Ludwig was in that race, planning retirement from GT1 (Laguna Seca 1997 or 1998, I believe). From Le Mans 2000, three Audi R8s had black-colored rear wing and accents, yellow-colored rear wing and accents, and red-colored rear wing and accents. But on the topic of driver changes, it can be tough to tell who's who sometimes. The biggest examples are in open-cockpit cars such as Champ Cars, F1 cars, LMPs, and even go-karts.

So GTPlanet, when it comes to trying to tell cars and drivers apart, what are some of the best ways to know how one car/driver is different from a teammate's car/driver? Which are easy to tell? Which are harder to tell? How do you diffrentiate one car/driver from another? Reply now, folks!

 

[Blake]

In F1 it's usually pretty easy for me to tell drivers apart from helmet, color of their camera, cars around them etc.

In ChampCars it's usuall fairly easy but I often have alot of trouble distinguishing Mario Dominguez and RHR. Alot of people have trouble distinguishing Pat and Paul, a little trick I use (If you have good enough reception) is look at the front nose cone, Pat has a light blue maple leaf on the nose whereas Paul has a red maple leaf

In V8's I sometimes have trouble figuring out who's in the car at bathurst because for some reason I ALWAYS have to go out during the middle of the race -- I have no idea why...

Thank god for tapes.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I usually look at the car number, the helmet, or the name of the driver on the car.

 

[Rue]

I always find that the different numbers on the side, front and rear of the car are a dead giveaway. For example, Michael Schumacher is number 1 and Rubens Barrichello is number 2. Actually, these two drivers don't particularly benefit from a number recognition system, or NRS (Number Recognition System) as I like to call it, as whoever is in front of the other on the track is obviously Michael Schumacher. This was most definately the case in Spa, Belgium, Europe anyway. However, back on topic - whoever came up with the ingenious invention of numbering cars should surely have their legacy honoured with a medal or other prize of equal stature. Other than that, then the different driver helmets, best viewed in open-cockpit racing, or the different names of the drivers plastered on the windows of the said car in tin-top or rallying tends to give me, and the millions of other viewers/spectators, an insight as to who is behing the wheel. This presents somewhat of a problem in endurance racing, when there are three drivers taking stints in one car. A solution I have found for this dilemma, the dilemma of having three drivers taking stints in one car, is to turn up the volume control on my TV (Television) and listen to the man, or woman - it could be a woman, commentating on the race at that moment in time. I think an ideal solution to the problem of not being able to tell drivers apart, given all these ambiguous clues, such as; name stickers, flourescent strips, helmets and commentators, would be for the television network broadcasting the race to super-impose the driver's name above their car. This would prevent any further confusion in the matter of confusion over being confused over the confusing matter of cars looking the same therefore not being able to identify the drivers from one another.

 

[Blake]

This would prevent any further confusion in the matter of confusion over being confused over the confusing matter of cars looking the same therefore not being able to identify the drivers from one another.

What

 

[millencolin]

i think that sponsorship shouldnt be on helmets, thats the one part of a racecar that a driver can really show his true self.

seriously, its pretty easy to reconise drivers if they are open wheelers. Schuie and rubens is easy, schu is all red, rubens is mainly white and blue with some red. the hardest is raikkonen and couthatd with mainly blue and white helmets. tags and pat used to be hard, but then tags changed his paint scheme (then changed teams to make it even EASIER ). but just look at the primary colour of the helmets and you cant go wrong

 

[Blake]

Yeah, the helmets shouldn't have sponsers on them unless they are sponsering the DRIVER not the team. Coulthard and kimi isn't too hard, just look for the blue cross on top of coulthards (it's a bit hard to see from a distance)