There is an age-old debate that’s been raging amongst motorsport fans regarding Formula 1 and NASCAR. While the two disciplines are very different at their core and operate as the premier category within themselves, Daniel Ricciardo found out one aspect where NASCAR takes the edge over F1.
Ricciardo, who had raced for the majority of his career with Red Bull — a top team — found himself lingering in the midfield ever since he left them. On the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Shepard back in 2020, the Aussie driver explained why he feels talent has a better way of finding its way to the top in American Stock Car racing than F1.
When asked if he felt NASCAR was better in terms of competition, he said, “I would say so. I think you still have your top teams but sure, there’s a bigger spread through the field who I think could win [in NASCAR] whereas, the last whatever seven years, Mercedes has won probably 80% of the races [in F1].”
What makes NASCAR a spec-like series is the fact that all the cars are homologated to a certain regulation. The teams don’t have much input in the final design of the stock cars and are restricted majorly only by engine power. In F1, however, the regulations allow a greater degree of freedom that lets teams design very different cars from each other.
Ricciardo explains why he chose F1 over NASCAR
The Australian racing ace is a self-proclaimed NASCAR fan. However, in the end, he chose to pursue a career in F1 over NASCAR for one simple reason — he wanted to test himself against the best.
“As a kid I loved motorbikes, I loved NASCAR,” he said. “But F1, that was the fastest-circuit car in the world. That’s really why I got into Formula 1. I wanted to try and see if I could be the best in the world,” he explained during Season 1 of the hit Netflix F1 docu-series ‘Drive to Survive’.
That said, his thriving career at the pinnacle of open-wheel, single-seater motorsport has allowed him to achieve his ambitions of driving a NASCAR car. Back in 2021, he drove his hero Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s car at the Circuit of the Americas at the US GP.
