Car? Or the Driver?

An interesting debate has popped up on the backdoors of the Raceconnect.com forums, and although it was being applied to virtual sim racing, the same could be said of the real-world.

What makes someone drive quickly? The car? The driver? Or the setup?

Its an interesting question, and one whose answer could prove to be invaluable to series like F1, where there is little to no overtaking, despite oddities like the Turkish Grand Prix.

Perhaps its a mix of all three factors? Certainly, James "jab" Bennett of the Welsh Grand Prix blog seems to think so.

And to an extent so do I. Drivers are now so good, as they make so few mistakes, a primary reason of any overtake.

Yet the difference in the performance of the cars has a part to play, too. However, this is usually most applicable to the slower backmarkers.

And the setups - these are tailored to the driver, so to some extent, these represent a mix of performance of driver and car.

Whatever the answer is may prove to be a slippery figure. There were 5 pages on this thread last time I checked, certainly one of the longest I've seen on the rather small Raceconnect forum, so its proving to be a debatable subject.