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7 drivers who were up for racing anything
Following the news that Fernando Alonso would drive a full World Endurance Championship in 2018 alongside his F1 commitments, we look at racing’s most versatile, game-for-anything drivers.
Once upon a time the news of a top racing driver getting involved with different racing disciplines wouldn’t warrant a mention. These days, however, it’s headline news.
So when two-time Formula One champ Fernando Alonso announced his decision to combine his day job with the Mclaren F1 team and compete in the World Endurance Championship with Toyota in 2018, eyebrows were raised.
In an era when F1 teams are reluctant to let their stars get their kicks in other forms of motorsport, let’s celebrate Alsono’s decision to take on the likes of the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 24 Hours and the WEC – and while were at it, celebrate some likeminded legends who have mixed it up.
Here are seven of the best…
1. Mario Andretti
Andretti in his Cart period
© Press
Even today, well into his seventh decade on earth, the 1978 F1 World Champion can still be found in the cockpit of a two-seater IndyCar giving the likes of Lady Gaga a spin around Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In his prime, Andretti’s achievements at the wheel on everything from short track ovals to the Nürburgring were pretty much unmatched by any other racer.
Since 1968 Andretti, in a career spanning the sport’s most deadly period, has won an Indy 500 win, four IndyCar championships and is the last American to win an F1 Grand Prix. He has raced and won in NASCAR at Daytona and has driven Ford GT40s and Porsche 956s at Le Mans.
Andretti is a stone-cold dude. He can race and win in anything and is responsible for the coolest quote in the canon of motorsport: “If everything seems under control, you aren’t going fast enough.”
2. Kimi Räikkönen
The Iceman exploring some, er, ice in his Citroën C4 WRC
© Citroën Racing
A man born out of time, is Kimi. Thrust into the world of F1 in an era when drivers dabbling in extracurricular racing pursuits was banned by sponsors and team bosses, the fastest monosyllabic man on the planet found a way to get his thrills outside of F1 by summoning the spirit of likeminded bad boy James Hunt…
In early 2007, just before the opening race of the F1 season, Räikkönen wasn’t in the gym or chatting with engineers like his rivals. Oh no, he was entering (and winning) snowmobile races in his native Finland using the pseudonym ‘James Hunt’. Surely the late, great playboy would’ve approved…
He’s also had a bash at NASCAR and during his F1 sabbatical competed in 21 World Rally Championship events, clocking up a stage win. And he’s no slouch on two wheels either…
3. Sébastien Loeb
Loeb smashed the Pikes Peak record
© Peugeot
Sébastien Loeb’s domination of the World Rally Championship with Citroën between 2004 and 2012 certainly paid the bills and etched the Frenchman’s name into motorsport history. But away from the gravel and ice of the WRC, Loeb has taken his balletic car control and ferocious speed and used it to be a contender in any motorsport discipline.
During his WRC reign, he starred at Le Mans, taking a second place overall in 2005. And after stepping away from full-time rallying in 2012, he has raced I n the Porsche Supercup and won in both the World Touring Car Championship and World Rallycross Championship. He’s even set up his own team, Sébastien Loeb Racing, and starred at the infamous Dakar Rally, taking the runner-up slot in 2017.
But one of the coolest indicators of Loeb’s rapid versatility came in 2013 when he took on the fearsome Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in the very slick, custom built 875bhp Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak. Not only did he win, he obliterated the course record by a minute and a half.
10 min
Sébastien Loeb's Race to the Clouds
Check out how Sébastien Loeb and Peugeot conquered Pikes Peak in the awesome 208 T16 Pikes Peak.
4. Steve Parrish
Steve Parrish went from bike racer to truck racer
© Getty Images
When it comes to racers who have excelled on two and four wheels, the obvious choice is the great John Surtees.
… so let’s go for a less obvious choice.
Step forward Steve ‘Stavros’ Parrish, best mate to Barry Sheene and, in a career spanning Moto GP and Superbikes, one of the quickest guys around from the late 1970s onwards. Mixing practical jokes and fast living, he won the British Superbike Championship and rode Suzukis and Yamahas at the highest level. But it is what he did next that underlined his racing versatility.
In 1987, Stavros stepped into the supersized world of truck racing, a truly spellbinding sport where huge rigs you’d normally see on the M40 pulling your groceries race each other at speeds of up to 100mph on grand prix circuits. Parrish dominated the sport at home and abroad, winning multiple titles and can still be seen today at the Goodwood Revival, mainly on two wheels ragging classic bikes around the hallowed circuit.
5. Ayrton Senna
Senna taming the powerful Lotus 97T
© Lotus
The enduring image of Senna is at the wheel of a Mclaren MP4/4 or a Lotus 98T. But peek behind his glittering Formula One legacy and it is clear the great Brazilian was not limited to speed and success in F1.
One day in 1986, the then Lotus F1 driver was whisked away from the safety of the F1 paddock into deepest rural Wales. There, he had a bash on the greasy gravel forest roads, driving such lusted-after rallying machinery as an Austin Rover 6R4 rocketship and a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth.
And of course, he was fast, humble and enthusiastic: “My only problem is I didn’t want to stop driving!” exclaimed the excited Senna after his rally experience.
On top of this, Senna had a go in a Penske IndyCar, and in 1984 at the newly-built Nürburgring, he managed to beat a load of F1 champions on a level playing field, all driving souped-up Mercedes 190E 2.3-16s.
In the same year, at the same circuit, he got to grips with a very cool looking Porsche 956 Group C machine, outpacing more seasoned sportscar specialists and helping to bring his car home a respectable eighth in the 1000km of Nürburgring.
6. Nigel Mansell
Mansell won the Cart championship at his first attempt
© Press
Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Nigel Mansell cut quite an unlikely motorsport hero, his flat cap and moustache crowning one of the greatest and most versatile racers ever to don a helmet.
‘Our Nige’, as he became affectionately known to the British public, took his first and only Formula One title in 1992, the culmination of a decade-plus struggle in which he should have claimed a hat-trick.
Remarkably, Mansell went straight from the rarefied world of F1 to the fast and furious Champ Car series in America, immediately winning the 1993 title dicing against the likes of Emerson Fittipaldi on superfast road courses and deadly 230mph+ ovals. He even nearly won the legendary Indy 500 at his first attempt.
And that’s not all.
In the late 1990s, at the height of the big bucks, manufacturer-supported British Touring Car Championship, Mansell turned in some of the most memorable drives the series has ever witnessed. He nearly won at a rain-soaked Donington in 1998 and, at the same circuit, experienced a huge shunt when he was helped into the barrier by another ex-F1 racer and all-round versatile racer, Mr Tiff Needell.
7. Dan Gurney
Gurney was one of racing's most multi-talented men
© Porsche
As is often the case with motorsport’s trailblazers, it took the passing of a legend to fully understand their greatness.
Dan Gurney’s career encompassed racing heroism, engineering excellence and a versatility which included Formula One wins, NASCAR wins, a 24 Hour of Le Mans victory, racing at nine Indy 500s and even becoming the first American to win a Formula One grand prix at the wheel of a car he had built.
If you want to sum up Gurney’s versatility in a racing car, look no further than one week in 1967.
June 11: Won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with another versatile racer, A.J. Foyt, in a Ford GT40 (and inadvertently invented the custom of post-race champagne spraying)
June 18: Won the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps in an F1 car of his own design with his All American Racers team
Sure, he didn’t win the F1 World Championship. But his achievements at the wheel of such a variety of cars amongst such a depth of talented competitors on such a multitude of stages underline what racing and pushing the envelope is all about.
