Which drivers are the fastest? WRC driver Drifts

If you have a car and you want to participate in motorsport, or if you just like watching people race cars, there are a lot of different types of racing to check out.  Just to name a few, you could look at: Drag Racing, Drifting, Rally Racing, Endurance Racing, Formula 1, Super Formula, Touring Car Racing, Desert Racing, Hill Climb Racing, Time Trials, NASCAR, Indy Car Racing, Dirt Circle Track, Spec Car Racing…  And this is just scratching the surface.

With all of those different ways to race, there is an inevitable question that comes up. 

Which drivers are the best?

This is not an easy question to unpack because of how different the cars are, and how different the types of racing can be.  Generally speaking, the debate usually boils down to WRC Drivers and Formula 1 drivers because the top drivers in both of those sports are thought of as being the best of the best.  But you can’t count out a driver that comes into a series and dominates the competition because that usually leads to the question of how they would stack up against the current top drivers.

As fun as it can be to discuss the finer points of this question, it is hard to find many concrete examples of how drivers of different disciplines stack up because they rarely race each other.  But on the odd occasion when they do, it is always worth paying attention because something cool might happen.

Something like this just happened when Kalle Rovanperä, who is the 2022 WRC Champion, decided to celebrate his win at Rally Portugal by flying to Japan and hopping into the Cusco GR Corolla the next weekend to compete in Formula Drift Japan at Ebisu Circuit.

Needless to say, this is worth watching, and it shows how well Rovanpera can adapt to a different type of racing.

This got me thinking about some of the other times that drivers have swapped seats or tried something different.  The first one that came to mind is when Sebastian Loeb ran Pikes Peak in the Peugeot 208 and set an almost unbelievable record time.

Loeb dominated the WRC for a number of years, and he tested a Red Bull F1 car in 2008 which got a lot of us wondering what it would be like if he made the jump into F1.  That never happened, but he did go on to have success in Touring Car Racing before he set out to tackle Pikes Peak.

His run in the Race to the Clouds is another example of how fast he can be on tarmac, and how he is type of driving with speed and precision can translate to nearly any type of motorsport. 

With the Pikes Peak Hill Climb coming up at the end of the month, and with this conversation in mind, it is definitely worth taking another look at Loeb’s run.

Staying on Pikes Peak for a moment, I have to also mention Romain Dumas and his run in the Volkswagen ID-R that ultimately took the overall record from Loeb.  Not only did Dumas set a time that seems almost unbeatable, but he is also an example of a driver that is very fast in very different disciplines.  He has been part of the winning team at LeMans, raced at Bathurst, and also won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb.

The next example that comes to mind is when Lewis Hamilton and Tony Stewart traded rides for a Mobile 1 Seat Swap at Watkins Glen.  Granted, this was a road course for NASCAR which would still be in Hamilton’s wheel-house.  The surprise here was how quick Stewart was in the McLaren F1 car.  It is definitely worth a watch if you haven’t seen it all ready.

There is actually a format that takes the top drivers from all over the world and puts them in spec cars to race head to head against each other to see who is the fastest.  The Race of Champions has been going on for years, and it is another great place to see how a wide variety of drivers stack up against each other.

Here is a link to the race this year, but it is definitely worth going back into their archives on their Youtube channel.

The final example that comes to mind involves Kimi Raikkonen.  Kimi is an F1 champion who also competed in the WRC for a bit.  He is someone that is basically just fast in virtually anything you put him in.  Even a lawn mower…

- Jon Cooley