That "pedestal" is very real. I also admit that being a NASCAR driver takes a lot of skill, no doubt about that. But it definitely takes more time for a D1 winner to become a F1 winner than the other way round. Come to think of it, some D1 drivers are former F3000 drivers from Japan but I've yet to hear from a D1 driver that became a F1 star.
But the point. How many F1 drivers are there? 20 on the grid and about a similar amount as test drivers. Sums up as around 40 drivers in the world and the grid drivers are there because they're the top 20 in the world. How many competition drifters are there? A couple of hundreds, probably thousands. Now, are the D1GP drivers really the best or do they just have the money to do it? I'm betting the latter option. Actually, I'm betting pretty much every town has at least one driver that can become a good drifter given the resources it takes. And I'm betting every town, even country, certainly doesn't have a driver that can become a good F1 driver no matter what they're given. Think of the successful American, French and Italian F1 drivers of the last decade. Not forgetting the Japanese, because if gripping takes as much skill as drifting, where are they?