The Modern All-Rounders

Think racing drivers are all one-trick ponies these days? Think again. Outside of F1, they’re diversifying more than at any time since the 1960's.

- Marcus Simmons

Everyone’s heard the ‘it-was-better-in-the-old-days’ motorsport bores reminiscing about the era when Formula 1 stars used to compete in every race on the support programme to grands prix. The fact that this pretty much died out from the 70's – the BMW M1 Procar series of 1979-80 excepted – was an inevitable consequence, not only of F1 drivers’ contracts becoming increasingly exclusive and their salaries ever greater, but also the vast rise in professionalism of most high-profile series demanding their own specialists. Not to mention that the enormous improvements in safety meant that the pool of top-line drivers across all disciplines grew exponentially simply because they were enjoying longer careers.

That’s begun to change over the past decade. OK, F1 drivers remain mostly F1-only, but look beyond the sport’s pinnacle to the top tiers of professionals and they’re becoming increasingly versatile. Partly, this has been a product of the logjam of drivers and high costs at GP2/Formula V8 3.5 level, together with the collapse of several F1 junior-driver programmes. The effect of this has filtered ever lower down the ladder, and now even Formula 4/Renault 2.0 graduates are jumping over to GT and tin-top categories in a bid to become a professional driver rather than forlornly chase the F1 dream.