Berger wants to see more F1 drivers diversifying

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Former Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger says that he hopes more Formula 1 drivers will branch out into other championships.

Berger used Fernando Alonso's bid to race in the 10st Indianapolis 500 next month as a prime example. Recently, Nico Hulkenberg was part of a winning Porsche team to win the LeMans 24 Hour race in 2014.

Berger gave this a big thumbs up. He said he welcomed a return to the golden days of motorsports, where drivers competed in multiple series at the same time.

"It's like the old days," he told Auto Motor und Sport. "In 1985 I drove for Arrows in Adelaide and the day before did a national touring car race for Bob Jane.

"It was still possible in those days and everyone had their fun."

Berger competed in Formula 1 for 14 seasons, six of them at Ferrari. He also drove for ATS, Arrows, Benetton and McLaren. He was subsequently a co-owner of the Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula One team between 2006 and 2008.

Berger: Mercedes still has the upper hand over Ferrari

Last month Berger became chairman of ITR, the promoter of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM). He said he hoped to see some big Formula 1 names opt to try their hand in the touring car series in future.

"I'm sure Vettel would like to do DTM races if he could," said the Austrian. "Drivers today have much more spare time than we used to, as there is hardly any testing."

Alonso will skip next month's Monaco race to take part in the Indy 500. However, Hulkenberg has ruled out missing a Grand Prix to return to Le Mans.

"I would never have done it if I had to miss a race for it, especially Monaco," the German driver said. "I didn’t go away from F1 in the way that he is doing."

Many well-known former Formula 1 drivers have competed in DTM over the years. David Coulthard, Mika Hakkinen, Allan McNish, Ralf Schumacher, Jean Alesi, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Paul di Resta have all taken part since leaving F1.

Pascal Wehrlein was crowned DTM champion in 2015 before moving to Formula 1 with Manor. He's now competing with Sauber, after a delayed start to his season due to suffering a back injury over the winter.

Esteban Ocon took part in the first five rounds of the 2016 DTM championship before being called up to replace Rio Haryanto at Manor. Ocon has now recorded three back-to-back finishes in his first 2017 outings for Force India.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.