This question came up during a discussion with a "civilian" regarding what it's like to drive a race car.

What percentage is mental v physical?
Without getting too involved in the many variables: temperature, technicality of the track, race v qualify, etc., what does it take to drive as close as possible to 10/10ths?

I'm sure experience will tend to reduce the mental, while overall conditioning can reduce the physical, but ballpark it from your own experience.

As a second ratio: Feet v hands.

H.(been accused of using 0% mental)B.

I had an instructor tell me that the closest sport to racing is tennis in that it requires a base level of fitness, but great eye-hand coordination and body control and awareness.
A SRF is pretty light, so its not going to take much strength to stop/turn and the G-loading is reasonable. Physically, driving a race car isn't a huge challenge, at least not for the typical 30-40 minute event ( unless its Texas in August :< ). Net, best estimate is that its 75% mental, 25% physical.
Feet v. Hands - depends on the car, but I guess that I'd use the traction circle as a guide. Feet ( braking/accel ) have to work in coordination with the hands. 50/50

i tend to agree with mr. Hart....a few years back, when we were at TWS one weekend, I put on my heart rate monitor (insert heart jokes here, this was before the big one) and as i recall the average rate was in the mid-low 140s. To put that in perspective, at the time i was racing mountain bikes, and that was around my 80% of max, endurance pace for long (4+ hour) races. (my sprint race averages were low 160s at the time) So physically, not too demanding.

Is this question directed at those that race SRF's, or is it racing in general?

enzo wrote:Is this question directed at those that race SRF's, or is it racing in general?

General

In that case I would say that the percentage changes with the speed and type of car. The faster the car the more physical it is to drive. Pro categories in drag racing, F1, and Indycar being the most physical. I would say in those classes 50/50 if not more to the physical side.

The easy answer is that it depends on the car- power vs no power steering, weight of the car- G-forces applied and the conditioning of the driver prior to driving.

as for brain vs brawn- I have seen quite a few very unfit drivers go very fast- so I think it is 75% brain, 25% brawn- this would likely even out in long endurance racers-

From a personal experience - a 45 min race pace mountain bike ride is about twice the physical output of a 45 min race- even on a physically demanding track- Actually I think MTB riding is a very similar sport (at least in new england where the trails are technical) and great conditioning. It requires the same focus, quick movements, hand/ foot/ body control and intensity as car racing.

Hand > foot in my opinion- we don't shift that much and breaking can be learned.

have fun training