I would suggest though, that the jump from “500hp sports car” to F1 is quite a lot bigger than 125cc GP bike (or Moto3 these days) to a premier class MotoGP (or 500cc GP) bike.
Those things were tiny little jewels of pure race bike, a world apart from even my Cagiva Mito (125cc sports street bike).
I’ve ridden a friends late 90s vintage Honda RS125 at a track day, and it’s such a joy to ride, beautifully precise - and way way more capable that I’ll ever be on a racetrack. I could match my own personal best lap times on my 900cc Ducati, but the club level racers could do 10 seconds a lap or so faster than me on their 125GP bikes, and the GP riders from 5 or 6 years earlier when the World Championship ran on the same track were almost 10 seconds faster in races than the club guys.
"the jump from “500hp sports car” to F1 is quite a lot bigger..." is what I was trying to say; someone imagining a career pipeline might point out that the power level is numerically closer, but in fact, that doesn't capture the proximity.
But "racing in the 125cc class" vs. the sort of person who begins on a liter bike sort of amounts to the same kind of dichotomy I was thinking of.
People who have a career in one sport, may grow up playing a different sport, but they were still likely doing something that demanded endurance, strength, and coordination.