MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi tested a Ferrari Formula One car at Mugello yesterday as a gift from the Italian team for acheiving his eighth championship title.
Rossi apparently completed nearly 30 laps of the famous Italian circuit and recorded a respectable fastest lap time of 1 min 22.5 seconds.
Rossi’s lap time wasn’t bad at all, considering that at Ferrari’s last Mugello test F1 driver Kimi Raikkonen posted a top time of 1 min 21.079 seconds, only 1.5 seconds quicker. Rossi may even of been able to post a faster lap time, but his test was cut short by bad weather.
I must say I’m not suprised - neither by his ability to change disciplines - nor by the fact that he does it from time to time. Don’t forget Michael Schumacher has been doing the same. I think to a certain degree, it’s about Racecraft. Don’t get me wrong, Im not trying to take anything away from either of them. But I think there is a certain skill-set that can generally be called “Racecraft”, which includes things like perception accuracy, agility, good timing and anticipation. Yes there will be an adaptation between the physical ability to pilot different vehicles, however, I think the above point is very important. Plus, I personally think that a motorcycle is more difficult to pilot and particularly more difficult than a car to pilot well. Those two points combined (of Racecraft and difficulty) would lead me to consider Rossi a better Racer and thus better able to adapt and be top level in forumla 1, than perhaps Schumacher in MotoGP. There is also the “racing mentality” i.e. the frontal lobe removal aspect of racing, but I feel that that is more-or-less a Racer characteristic, more than any KIND of Racer…
