Well I think Eddie Irvine's star is certainly rising. I've always been a fan of Johnny Herbert, but at this point he seems to be clearly a number two driver. Jeff Gordon seems to be a lightning rod in Winston Cup. Almost a dividing line. It's difficult to compare drivers in different series, but Schumacher has proven himself, he's so good at F1 and the skills necessary in F1 are so similar to those in CART that I'd be shocked if he werent a winner as soon as he came over here.
History certainly suggests as much.
But Earnhart's clearly a top ten driver and a threat to win any race he enters. Racing is much safer than it was a generation ago and fatalities are very much the exception to the rule. The semi automatic transmissions which are illegal in F1, allow the driver to up and downshift by pressing a button or paddle. The clutch automatically engages and disengages so the driver doesn't have to blip the throttle on downshift or lift the shift on upshift, saving time on the race track, also saving engines because they prevent drivers from over-revving. The series is so popular that it obviously needed another outlet both for racers and fans.