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Well can a regular Joe, or Flo, really drive an F1 car?

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John S:
Well find out in this vid.

Remember no brake testing allowed in F1.  :nono:  ::)

Jericoke:
It's hard to appreciate how good athletes are in sports with specialized skills.  We can all kick a ball, catch a ball, hit a ball, and understand how much skill it takes to excel at those sports.

But being an F1 'driver' is so far removed from driving a family hauler, it's almost ridiculous to compare them.

lkjohnson1950:
Some sports medicine doctors once did a study to determine the fitness levels of athletes from various sports. Not who was strongest, but things like endurance, vision, oxygen use, recovery time, etc. The top scorers were Moto Cross riders. They also were amazed to find that racing drivers "see" differently than average humans. They process what they are looking at faster and in more detail than average. They were uncertain if this was learned or innate to the individuals.

Andy B:
There used to be a TV program called Superstars in the UK where sports personalities competed against each other and F1 drivers always did themselves proud and this You Tube shows why.

Alianora La Canta:
F1 Racing did something like this twice.

The first time, Peter Windsor was allowed a practise run in a Toyota F1 car with demonstration tyres. Peter has won car races at club level, so he's not quite a "regular Joe or Flo". However, even he spun twice, and finished with renewed respect for the racing driver's craft.

A few years later, a proper regular Joe (whose name I do not recall) did the Renault project in that YouTube video. Note that the Renault is much more detuned than the Toyota. It probably says something that the title of the piece was:

"Please don't leave me alone. I don't know what I'm doing"

(Guess who was Renault's lead driver at the time?)

On the other hand, Murray Walker tested a McLaren back in the 1980s. He struggled in the first few laps, but gradually improved through the session. He parked the car at the end of the day and was told,

"You've done something any pro driver would give their eye teeth for!"

"What was that?" asked Murray.

"You've improved your lap time by 30 seconds..."

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