Tony Stewart / Lewis Hamilton Watkins Glen tickets?

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Justice_Strikes
I figured I'd ask here in case anyone knows: Are there tickets to this event? The glen's website doesn't even list the event on their calender.
 
I'm not worried about Ham driving a NASCAR, but I am quite scared to see Stewart attempt to drive a Formula 1

Should be interesting...lol
 
SUBSAILOR
I figured I'd ask here in case anyone knows: Are there tickets to this event? The glen's website doesn't even list the event on their calender.
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When Button and Lowndes swapped cars for a lap of Bathurst, there weren't any tickets on sale. People just showed up. It may be the same thing here - or it could well be a closed session for filming and no spectators will be allowed in.
 
I live a couple hours from the glen. Would love to go but I don't see that happening.
 
IRL is a good feeder series for F1, almost as good or the same as GP2. The IRL cars are alot faster than GP2s.....Way faster. They just run at different circuits and so IRL driver's dont know the F1 layouts at all.

A guy like Castroneves or Franchitti wouldnt want to do it because he's mega RICH in IRL, he'd likely take a 90% pay cut in F1.


Stewart lost some weight over the winter. I'd like to see a head to head again at Montreal. One year the Champ Cars & F1s raced at Montreal on diff weekends. Champ cars were only about 4 secs off the pace.
 
fissionproject
IRL is NOT F1, but I guess it's a good foundation
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If Jeff Gordon can drive a V10 powered Williams, I think Stewart can handle the V8 McLaren.



I think some people really underestimate the talent of non-f1 drivers sometimes.
 
Justin
If Jeff Gordon can drive a V10 powered Williams, I think Stewart can handle the V8 McLaren.



I think some people really underestimate the talent of non-f1 drivers sometimes.
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Gordon said "you get light headed under braking". I think thats the highest G load if I'm correct....300 km/hr-100 in about 60 meters.
 
I dont see how IRL is a feeder series for F1, I dont know of any drivers who came from IRL to F1. I am probably wrong on that though. The only person I know of who came from an American series to F1 was Sebastien Bourdais, but he was pretty rubbish. Even Scott Speed skipped most of the American series on his way to F1. Im not disputing that there arent guys who could do it, just none that Im aware of have done it, at least not since Andretti.

On Gordon/Montoya, there is a difference in being able to drive an F1 car and being able to actually drive an F1 car. I dont know what Gordons times were but I bet they were no where close to Montoyas. Same as when Button and Lowndes. drove the F1 car around Bathurst, Lowndes was 2 seconds slower, even though Button had never been on the track before.
 
Hollidog
I dont see how IRL is a feeder series for F1, I dont know of any drivers who came from IRL to F1. I am probably wrong on that though. The only person I know of who came from an American series to F1 was Sebastien Bourdais, but he was pretty rubbish. Even Scott Speed skipped most of the American series on his way to F1. Im not disputing that there arent guys who could do it, just none that Im aware of have done it, at least not since Andretti.

On Gordon/Montoya, there is a difference in being able to drive an F1 car and being able to actually drive an F1 car. I dont know what Gordons times were but I bet they were no where close to Montoyas. Same as when Button and Lowndes. drove the F1 car around Bathurst, Lowndes was 2 seconds slower, even though Button had never been on the track before.
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Iirc, Jeff Gordon's best time around the track was only 1.3s slower than Montoya's fastest lap of the day.
 
Rich S
IRL is a good feeder series for F1, almost as good or the same as GP2. The IRL cars are alot faster than GP2s.....Way faster. They just run at different circuits and so IRL driver's dont know the F1 layouts at all.

A guy like Castroneves or Franchitti wouldnt want to do it because he's mega RICH in IRL, he'd likely take a 90% pay cut in F1.


Stewart lost some weight over the winter. I'd like to see a head to head again at Montreal. One year the Champ Cars & F1s raced at Montreal on diff weekends. Champ cars were only about 4 secs off the pace.
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IRL is more like an alternative to F1, rather than a feeder series.
If an American driver wishes to make it to F1, they are much more likely to do so progressing through the European categories currently, unfortunately that is obviously very expensive for any non-European.

Its not about speed, GP2 is much more useful for F1 because they run on the same circuits with similar downforce levels. Its also much easier to become a reserve/test driver if you are at the same weekends as the F1 teams. Also, speed is irrelevant, IRL cars have high top speeds because they are setup and run on ovals, F1 cars (and GP2) never run ovals and are setup for corners. Completely different discipline in this respect.

Pay cut in F1? :lol: IRL drivers get piddly amounts of pay. A driver like Franchitti in a similar situation (fighting for championships) would get several times more than he does now. Perhaps he wouldn't get the chance for a top seat that would pay so much straight away, but he'd easily get the same pay he does now if he signed for a midfield/backmarker team.
Paul Di Resta probably earns almost as much as Franchitti. Even in NASCAR, the best paid driver does not earn anywhere near what Alonso earns (but the slower drivers earn more than the lowest drivers in F1).

Champ cars were closer to F1 because they ran more road circuits, they weren't as oval-focused as the Indycars. Even so, 4 seconds is a lot of time, Hispania are "only" 4 seconds from Red Bull.
 
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Ardius
Even in NASCAR, the best paid driver does not earn anywhere near what Alonso earns (but the slower drivers earn more than the lowest drivers in F1).
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Top NASCAR drivers can earn around 20-30 million dollars per year (inc. all sponsorhsip deals etc).. Dale Earnhardt Jnr got $29million last year for example, Jeff Gordon $25m, Champ Jimmie Johnson got $24m .... Tony stewart got about $18m all up last year... (link: http://www.forbes.com/2011/02/23/nascar-highest-paid-drivers-business-sports-nascar-11_slide_2.html)

I don't think there are many people in F1 who earn that much.... Alonso may be creaming it at Ferrari, but the rest of the grid are a long way behind... I suspect the back half/third of the grid are on less than a million.

We're not talking about a massive difference in potential earnings here.
 
ND4SPD
Iirc, Jeff Gordon's best time around the track was only 1.3s slower than Montoya's fastest lap of the day.
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Gordon set a lap time of 1:16.5 around Indy in the Williams FW24 from the 2002 season. The 2002 pole time for the US GP was a 1:10.790 set by Michael Schumacher.

Montoya must of been cruising... But that's still an impressive time for Gordon considering he didn't have much time in the car.
 
Thats why I said that while the top drivers in F1 earn way more than anyone else, the rest of the F1 grid earn less than even the lowest NASCAR driver. So basically the average NASCAR pay is higher but the top guys get better pay in F1.
IRL is no where near NASCAR or F1 for salary/pay.
The point was that drivers like Franchitti or Castroneves wouldn't "take a 90% pay cut in F1", even if they drove for midfield teams they would be earning similar if not better money than the best IRL team which still require their own pay drivers of a sort.
 
Simply competing in one race of a series I don't think counts as graudating from it.
If a driver entered and won one GP2 race and then competed in F1, would you consider him as a graduate of GP2? Of course not.

Montoya learnt his trade in CART, not in IRL. The point still stands that there hasn't been a recent IRL driver in F1.
 
CarolinaBlue704
Gordon set a lap time of 1:16.5 around Indy in the Williams FW24 from the 2002 season. The 2002 pole time for the US GP was a 1:10.790 set by Michael Schumacher.

Montoya must of been cruising... But that's still an impressive time for Gordon considering he didn't have much time in the car.
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Then again most track records were held by schumacher between 2001-2003 era. What makes it more impressive is climbing into a car youve never been close to, a track youve never seen, and with a slow setup and being just a bit slower than the guy that drives it regularly.
 
Ardius
Simply competing in one race of a series I don't think counts as graudating from it.
If a driver entered and won one GP2 race and then competed in F1, would you consider him as a graduate of GP2? Of course not.

Montoya learnt his trade in CART, not in IRL. The point still stands that there hasn't been a recent IRL driver in F1.
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He won the F3000 series before going to CART (and winning the Indy 500)... so he has come up the openweel ranks via the US.

Didn't Zanardi do it also (CART to F1), and Sebastien Bourdais?
 
MatskiMonk
He won the F3000 series before going to CART (and winning the Indy 500)... so he has come up the openweel ranks via the US.

Didn't Zanardi do it also (CART to F1), and Sebastien Bourdais?
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Yeah, but the point was that none of those two did well in f1.
 
F1 fan
Yeah, but the point was that none of those two did well in f1.
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Fair enough, but there have been lots of drivers in F1 that came up the traditional way and achieved nothing special also... whats the difference?
 
MatskiMonk
He won the F3000 series before going to CART (and winning the Indy 500)... so he has come up the openweel ranks via the US.

Didn't Zanardi do it also (CART to F1), and Sebastien Bourdais?
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The original point was IRL to F1. CART to F1 is slightly different, as I have said CART was run slightly differently to IRL and favoured more road/street courses than ovals.

In the end, IRL is not a feeder to F1, it doesn't offer a high-enough standard of competition and doesn't appear to give the right kind of experience. Its also not where the F1-talent scouts generally look as it tends to be the place where relatively unsuccessful open wheel drivers go when they reach the top of the European ladder but can't get an F1 seat.

The fact that CART drivers have even struggled in F1 really puts teams off though, there just isn't the known quantities that series like GP2, FR3.5, F3, etc have.

To put it back to the original, original point - I don't think Tony will have an issue handling the F1 car. It won't be done at flat out speeds and he isn't rubbish. NASCAR drivers aren't bad drivers. His IRL experience will obviously help but even a NASCAR driver with no previous open-wheel experience wouldn't bin an F1 car on what is effectively a publicity stunt.
There are far worse drivers who have been given real F1 tests who haven't binned the car.
I'd also say that reading into the times he sets doesn't really tell you much either - as with any racing car (but particularly an F1 car) its relatively easy to get within a few seconds of the ultimate speed, its the tenths of a second difference that are the hardest to find. People talk up Jeff Gordon's run but while it wasn't too shabby, its not really impressive to be within seconds.
The top drivers from any series put in any other car (e.g. Loeb in the Red Bull 2008, Raikkonen in NASCAR, Montoya in NASCAR, Senna in a rally car, etc etc) will always be within seconds of the top drivers for that other car. Its finding the last tenths of a second to secure victory that are the hardest and what sets apart the top drivers in each particular type of racing.
 
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vfrmaverick
Then again most track records were held by schumacher between 2001-2003 era. What makes it more impressive is climbing into a car youve never been close to, a track youve never seen, and with a slow setup and being just a bit slower than the guy that drives it regularly.
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That wasn't a track record. Just the 2002 pole time (since the car Gordon drove was a 2002 chassis). I listed it to put Gordon's lap into perspective.

It was a good time by Gordon considering it was his first time in an F1 car. But not a competitive time like many people make it out to be.
 
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Not too impressive though, when you consider how much closer Valentino Rossi got to the pace. Now that was impressive.
 
F1 fan
Not too impressive though, when you consider how much closer Valentino Rossi got to the pace. Now that was impressive.
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3 things.

1) Rossi's test was as Catalunya, which the Motogp races at in the same layout as the F1 series. Gordon's run was at Indy, using a completely different layout than the oval.

2) Fairly certain Rossi participated in an actual test type run where the Gordon/Montoya thing was merely a publicity thing(as was the Button/Lowndes at Bathurst and the Stewart/Hamilton at the Glen), so it's not like they were pushing the cars to get every last millisecond.

3) Prior to the Catalunya session Rossi tested an F1 car at Mugello, so he at least had some experience behind the wheel of an F1 car.

I'm not saying it wasn't impressive, but it's not really the same situation as Gordon.
 

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