The Tony Stewart - Lewis Hamilton Drive-swap.

[ADx_Wales]

A.K.A. too many publicocrapometer breakages spoil the broth.

http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/nascar/cu ... id=6162176

How on earth is there going to be an outcome outside of the comment of "its different" from both drivers.

And how the hell is TS going to squeeze into an MP4?

[DOSBoot]

Could this mean that Lewis is going to NASCAR sometime in the near future? Only time will tell.

[Shizuka]

"and Stewart will drive Hamilton's 2010-model F1 McClaren"

If they can't type the team name down properly...

[thehemogoblin]

This is freaking sweet. Color me excited.

[Cynon]

Tony Stewart's Burger King-enlarged arse would have problems fitting into the fatbody car McLaren made for Nigel Mansell; let alone Hamilton's car!

Guys, are you seriously surprised when ESPN has crap reporting? They (okay, Dale Jarrett) called A.J. Allmendinger an IndyCar champion and believed it...

... thankfully nobody else did...

Even if I didn't loathe Stewart and wish the worst for him, he was a total noob in the IRL. Yes, he won championships, but a mouthbreathing cycloptic monkey could have won those titles in that same car. Oh, I'm sorry, HOW long did it take for him to win an IRL race? Keep in mind, I'm talking about pre-2002, back when the IRL field was a complete joke...

Therefore I predict he will fail epically and crash, and I will take great enjoyment from it.

As for Lewis Hamilton, I seem to recall him saying at one point he would like to try out NASCAR at some point on the road courses. It sure got Jacques Villeneuve to do it... and there are so many Hamilton/Villeneuve parallels... ... ...

[mario]

Tony Stewart's Burger King-enlarged arse would have problems fitting into the fatbody car McLaren made for Nigel Mansell; let alone Hamilton's car!

I'll admit that Mansell's special cockpit was coming to mind when others were talking about Tony Stewart's "generous" physique, shall we say - particularly when you consider that Hamilton is not an especially large driver to begin with...

It's hardly a new phenomenon - after all, Gary Paffett, IIRC, drove an Australian V8 car before the 2010 Australian GP, with the driver of the V8 car (whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment) driving a 2008 specification McLaren.
It'll probably amount to nothing more than each driver saying that it is a very different experience - but what is perhaps more interesting is that McLaren are prepared to risk letting Hamilton take part, admittedly in a publicity stunt for their sponsors, in the wake of Kubica's rallying accident.

As for Lewis Hamilton, I seem to recall him saying at one point he would like to try out NASCAR at some point on the road courses. It sure got Jacques Villeneuve to do it... and there are so many Hamilton/Villeneuve parallels... ... ...

Did he? I can't remember him saying anything like that, although it could just be that I missed that report at the time. As for the Hamilton/Villeneuve parallels, well, if you look for long enough you can find parallels between most drivers - they are all fundamentally trying to do the same job (i.e. win races, or at least score points if the car isn't quite on the pace), so it's hardly surprising if some drivers have initially similar careers (although Hamilton's career has been moving in a very different way to Villeneuve's for some time now, so the comparison seems increasingly less appropriate).

[patrick]

More interestingly, one of the V8SC drivers (Lowndes maybe) is going to drive a McLaren around Bathurst around the time of the Oz gp. And to complete the swap, Jenson Button will go around in a V8SC.
Vodafone promotional event I think, will be interesting to see how fast they dare to let the McLaren go around the twisty bits

[Cynon]

Tony Stewart's Burger King-enlarged arse would have problems fitting into the fatbody car McLaren made for Nigel Mansell; let alone Hamilton's car!

I'll admit that Mansell's special cockpit was coming to mind when others were talking about Tony Stewart's "generous" physique, shall we say - particularly when you consider that Hamilton is not an especially large driver to begin with...

It's hardly a new phenomenon - after all, Gary Paffett, IIRC, drove an Australian V8 car before the 2010 Australian GP, with the driver of the V8 car (whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment) driving a 2008 specification McLaren.
It'll probably amount to nothing more than each driver saying that it is a very different experience - but what is perhaps more interesting is that McLaren are prepared to risk letting Hamilton take part, admittedly in a publicity stunt for their sponsors, in the wake of Kubica's rallying accident.

NASCAR cars are the safest racing cars on the face of the planet, bar none. The last on-track injury that I can think of is Dario Franchitti at Talladega in 2008. Since then, NASCAR cars have smashed into catchfences, smashed into walls with the A pillar first, shattered the car without driver injury, and seen the greatest act of rejectdom ever without a single driver injured. There's really no risk for Lewis in Stewart's NASCAR car at Watkins Glen, or, I'd argue, no risk for Lewis in Stewart's car... anywhere on the NASCAR circuit.

As an aside, didn't Jenson Button and Jamie Whincup already trade places once as a Vodafone publicity stunt?

[patrick]

As an aside, didn't Jenson Button and Jamie Whincup already trade places once as a Vodafone publicity stunt?

Yes, I think that was at Albert Park last year

[mario]

Tony Stewart's Burger King-enlarged arse would have problems fitting into the fatbody car McLaren made for Nigel Mansell; let alone Hamilton's car!

I'll admit that Mansell's special cockpit was coming to mind when others were talking about Tony Stewart's "generous" physique, shall we say - particularly when you consider that Hamilton is not an especially large driver to begin with...

It's hardly a new phenomenon - after all, Gary Paffett, IIRC, drove an Australian V8 car before the 2010 Australian GP, with the driver of the V8 car (whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment) driving a 2008 specification McLaren.
It'll probably amount to nothing more than each driver saying that it is a very different experience - but what is perhaps more interesting is that McLaren are prepared to risk letting Hamilton take part, admittedly in a publicity stunt for their sponsors, in the wake of Kubica's rallying accident.

NASCAR cars are the safest racing cars on the face of the planet, bar none. The last on-track injury that I can think of is Dario Franchitti at Talladega in 2008. Since then, NASCAR cars have smashed into catchfences, smashed into walls with the A pillar first, shattered the car without driver injury, and seen the greatest act of rejectdom ever without a single driver injured. There's really no risk for Lewis in Stewart's NASCAR car at Watkins Glen, or, I'd argue, no risk for Lewis in Stewart's car... anywhere on the NASCAR circuit.

As an aside, didn't Jenson Button and Jamie Whincup already trade places once as a Vodafone publicity stunt?

Oh, I don't doubt that the modern NASCAR cars are robustly built and that the risk of injury in an accident is low. As your videos show, with your competitors in such close proximity and potentially quite large differences in closing speed, the cars are naturally going to be pretty heavily reinforced to withstand any potential impact.

The point was more about the psychology of the team - after all, you can imagine that all of the teams would be naturally cautious about what could happen to their drivers after Kubica's crash (incidentally, when was the last major accident in an S2000 rally car?).
OK, this is at the behest of Mobil, who supply Mercedes HPE with lubricants and fuel, but even so, it isn't really in McLaren's interests to place one of their front line drivers in an unfamiliar car and track at a time when both him and the team are trying to focus on the start of the 2011 season.

Speaking of which, I think that you are right about Button and Whincup switching cars last year - I confused that display with an old one that Mercedes used to put on which Paffett used to take part in.

[David AGS]

It was definetly Button and Whincup swapping cars.

Similar thing to Bathurst this year. Id say though Button would drive a 2010 car, or mabe the 2008 car. They most likely have the 08 car, as they do the 'Ultimate Speed Comparison'.

What that is, they would let a High Performance car, like a BMW, then after about 30 secs, let a V-8 car loose, then about a minute after that let the F1 car go. Its pretty exciting, and the F1 Car hasnt won all the time. But it catches em big time on the straight. They all do a lap, and I guess it depends who's driving the f1 car, and tyre temps etc.

[DanielPT]

Oh, I don't doubt that the modern NASCAR cars are robustly built and that the risk of injury in an accident is low. As your videos show, with your competitors in such close proximity and potentially quite large differences in closing speed, the cars are naturally going to be pretty heavily reinforced to withstand any potential impact.

The point was more about the psychology of the team - after all, you can imagine that all of the teams would be naturally cautious about what could happen to their drivers after Kubica's crash (incidentally, when was the last major accident in an S2000 rally car?).

I am sure that the stunt will be performed at near pedestrian speeds. They can't afford Stewart totalling the McCLaren .

As for Lewis Hamilton, I seem to recall him saying at one point he would like to try out NASCAR at some point on the road courses. It sure got Jacques Villeneuve to do it... and there are so many Hamilton/Villeneuve parallels...

Can it be, then, that Hamilton, in 2013, will join his father in a brand new outfit called British Hamilton Racing, revealling itself later to be an ill-fated decision?
That would be a major parallelism! Remember folks, you first read about it in here!

[Yannick]

Well, it's good for the sponsor probably. But the real question is indeed whether Tony Stewart can fit into the cockpit of the McLaren.

[nome66]

soo i uuh..uh...uhh..AAAHHCHOOMONTOYA

[AussieV8]

but what is perhaps more interesting is that McLaren are prepared to risk letting Hamilton take part, admittedly in a publicity stunt for their sponsors, in the wake of Kubica's rallying accident.

It's just a demo drive though. I doubt he would really push the car to the absolute limit that he would in competitive driving.

[Henrique]

If this becomes fashion, we may see Danica Patrick in a F1 car soon.

[Phoenix]

If this becomes fashion, we may see Danica Patrick in a F1 car soon.

Or Milka Duno, maybe in a Williams

[DanielPT]

If this becomes fashion, we may see Danica Patrick in a F1 car soon.

Or Milka Duno, maybe in a Virgin

Fixed.

[F1000X]

but what is perhaps more interesting is that McLaren are prepared to risk letting Hamilton take part, admittedly in a publicity stunt for their sponsors, in the wake of Kubica's rallying accident.

It's just a demo drive though. I doubt he would really push the car to the absolute limit that he would in competitive driving.

Your probably right. Jeff Gordon wringed that Williams out though back in 2003.