My thoughts:

  1. Motor-racing has always been about the car more than the driver. (One of the reasons I'm more of a sportscar guy. I'm interested in the cars, not necessarily the personalities).
  2. Only the mono- make series are driver focused because the "car factor" has been eliminated by providing all drivers with essentially the same machinery. (great spectacle..sometimes, but not my cup of tea)
  3. F1 decided long ago to promote (market) the drivers because they understood that most people can more easily relate to people than they can to cars. This is the reason that F1 has a much broader world-wide following than other series that tend to be more car focused.
  4. This is why  the " driver X is so much better than all the others" is nothing but a marketing narrative. At that level of professional driving, the difference between that various drivers is very small indeed. That is not to say that there are not other factors that come into play (eg. work ethic,relationship with team, communication skills, etc)
  5. What GR has shown is that most professional drivers at a F1 level , if given that chance to drive the dominant car, will quite easily be at the top (or near the top ) of the time sheets.