From Formula 1 to...NASCAR?

Mention the name Jarno Trulli and the next thought would be Formula 1. These days, Mika Salo is usually associated with a winning Ferrari F430.

But not right now. Instead, the Italian and Finnish drivers have been at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida, just a few miles south of Daytona, testing a Michael Waltrip Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Toyota. On this high-banked 1/2-mile oval, the Europeans got their first taste of what its like to wrestle a 3400-lb. 850-bhp stock car.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Jarno Trulli
• Mika Salo
• NASCAR
• racing
• test
• stock car
• Speedway
• Toyota
• Sprint
• Cup
• 1/2-mile
• banked
• HP
• horsepower

[bfahren]

@YasuEntertainement NASCAR is not about speed on a few laps (any decent driver with a good car can do that, coming from F1, Indy, whatever). NASCAR is about getting your way through heavy traffic at high speeds for several hours while trying to keep a fatass +800HP car under control. NASCAR concept is simple, NASCAR reality is way more complicated.

[wilatemodel]

@evanthemack if its so easy,.why aint u there????

[Jah2070]

@Jared1452 Im a ALMS, FIA GT, and Super GT fan.

[Jared1452]

@Jah2070 Most NASCAR drivers go to touring car series, like Grand-Am, ALMS, Super GT and such. P.S. Mario Andretti was was a NASCAR driver before he went to F1. He won the Daytona 500 in 1967! Sad thing is you F1 fans don't want to admit that ;).

[theMstanglover]

@Jah2070 MARIO ANDRETTI!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sounds stupid, but look it up. Mario started stock car racing, and NASCAR is local to America. Any big star who wants to come in they'll take. Doesn't mean they'll succeed.

[MrDragon1968]

...You also can't do like for like comparisons on basic qualy laps unless you're racing exactly the same car + set up under the same conditions (inc weather). And doing laps on your own, whilst not competing against other F1 drivers over multiple & massively varying circuits, isn't indicative of how good an F1 driver you need to be to perform. That said I like Gordon, I think he was one of a few US drivers that may have been able to step up to F1 since Eddie Cheever. Scott Speed was a disaster.

[MrDragon1968]

@PchanStitch Not into the whole F1 vs Nascar bollox, however Montoya was an F1 reject. He's not a F1 champion & lost his F1 ride for seriously under performing after initially showing promise. Gordon is a top NASCAR driver who's won multiple championships & pro'ly could have made a switch to F1 if he'd been groomed early on. Relevance of single lap times are in 1/10's of secs. Being 1.3 secs out (as Gordon was) on a single lap translates to 1 min 30 out over a 70 lap race- a huge margin in F1.

[KHI29SMOKE14]

@Jah2070 mabye they dont want to drive in f1 but f1 driver are comin to nascar like juan pablo kimi rikkanen

[Jah2070]

how many nascar drivers you see in f1? zero....

[bfahren]

@LamborghiniGP I didn´t know and I don´t care. I´m not trying to say which one is better or harder. I´m just pointing out that there is a lot more to NASCAR than just "a bunch of cars turning left all the time" and saying that a pilot from another motorsport could do better than the best NASCAR pilots just because he took a few laps BY HIMSELF and ALMOST did as good is damn nonsense.

Same the other way around.

[LamborghiniGP]

@bfahren

did you know that some F1 racing cars have more than 800HP?