I would say Tommi Makinen's skill far outdoes the car.
If there's anybody who can drive at insane speed in adverse conditions safely, it's him.
If we're talking strictly about race driving. Even the best drivers are not safe 100% of the time. Track conditions, mechanical problems, other drivers and unfortunate circumstances that occur because of high speed make sure that you are rarely "safe" by any stretch of the definiton. Nobody is perfect and mistakes happen. When you race you are testing yourself to see how few mistakes you can make and how good you are at correcting those mistakes before they become catastrophic. By it's nature, you are actually putting yurself in a situation where mistakes are more likely to happen or small mistakes are amplified into larger ones. Certainly, there are things you can do when racing to ensure that you are not causing unsafe conditions for others and things you can do to make unsafe conditions a little more safe or predictable.
Don't get me wrong, I like racing and driving fast as long as it's on a proper track and in a controlled environment. I have attended a couple track days and will be attending a couple more next month with my MP3. This is nowhere near a safe activity even with instructors in every car, tech inspections, and constant monitoring of the activities on track. You still ride a foot off the guys bumper in front of you and take turns with your foot buried in the accelerator. People still spin out and, on rare occasion, some dude smacks his car up because he loses focus. It just happens when you're in that environment.
I've heard of dudes flipping their cars at autocrosses, which really shouldn't happen, but it does. The only way to be 100% safe is to never leave the house!
