his press release from the rallye du var is pretty interesting if you dodge the frenglish - particularly for the comments from his co-driver. it gives you an idea of the stuff a circuit driver has to adapt to when they try rallying out. here's the
post-var rally one.
i agree with you that it's a shame more young drivers (particularly the ones with cash to burn) don't try out different disciplines. i think panciatici is lucky in that his backers are evidently a lot easier to pursuade, and generally everyone else is either so cash rich they're too busy squandering it or struggling to muster up the budget for the series they want to do in the first place.
the worst thing to come out of the kubica accident aside from his personal story is the attitudes that renault must have been completely barking mad letting him play with anything other than f1. all of a sudden it's percieved as a dangerous sport. which it is, if you bin it. the key is to keep it out of the trees - which is a lost art in the bigger single seaters where you don't get stuck in a gravel trap or wedged into a barrier every time you make a mistake. it's like there's an arrogance towards going off on the circuit, the kind which is punished heavily in rallying. i've never seen panciatici stuff it independantly into any form of barrier - he's missed braking points like everyone does but nothing that required a new part of the car. he's pretty epic in the wet too, which would suggest he's good at judging the levels of grip. in those respects he's ideally suited to rallying.
edit: famous last words about arzeno. he's binned it on stage 4. oops!