Rosberg: GP Driver Coaching

[gfm]

Enjoyed Rosberg’s comments about professional coaching for newcomers to Grand Prix racing, although I must say I thought his Dad would have done a commendable job. If he’s anything like the Keke I remember, his rates would have been exorbitant!

As I did some coaching for a few years at National level recently, I felt there was indeed a serious need for this all the way up. I reckoned I could find most drivers a regular second a lap (and indeed did). The best results came from competitors who were positive and open-minded toward their performance and talking to someone who had been ‘there’ and able to communicate the right things etc. Absorption or some such.

Interestingly as Rosberg points out, it appears that further up the level of competition, the less racing drivers THINK they can learn; when point of fact, it’s MORE important to have the mind open to improvement. Maybe this is an extension of your unable to suggest to most males that they can’t drive, and the understandable size of egos in F1. To get hold of Ralph Schumacher for example and suggest there maybe a better way, would probably put you in line for a simple decking!

I always thought that guys like Hill, Blundell, Brundle, Herbert and Coulthard (when he’s ready) are in an ideal position, hugely qualified and with sufficient intelligence (well, …) where they could take hold of a youngster and ‘coach’ them in issues of technical understanding, drive or race ‘win’ techniques, team management (internal, upwards) and so on.

The biggest issue that I took on board over the years was in fact the importance of your mental approach to racing and it’s components. You can fuss all you want over your ‘lines’, your compounds or your ratios, but if you don’t address the situation correctly as ‘the racer’ in the first place, frankly you will blow your money. And let’s face it, on any one grid, there’ll be 1 winner … 25 losers; and why were we doing this?

I’m sure the penny will drop one day in GP racing to follow other pro sports. There is much to be learned from professional coaching; just admitting it would be a huge step forward. Your manager take care of the money, your fitness guy takes care of the training, diet etc, so what about improving your ‘racing’ via experience and technique.

Certainly, GP2 and F3 are reasonably exploited etc. But further up, there’s a ‘component’ missing. Well done Rosberg for spotting it.

(This is even more prevalent in sports car racing which wouldn’t exist without a number of wealthy ‘amateurs’ taking part. Quite a few coaching staff to be found there.)

[Peter Wardle]

Interesting one this.

If you look at every other world class sport virtually all of the top competitors have, had, or are just changing personal coaches.

There's a saying - "Professionals have coaches, amateurs do not" which seems to sum up a lot.

This especially applies to all the 'under F1' categories in motor racing and I fully agree with gfm that probably the cheapest way of gaining time is with a good driver coach, however much the coach costs! If Tiger Woods has a coach it would seem a bit surprising that some of the mid-back field F1 drivers don't, let alone the lower level National categories.

[Knowlesy]

It is intriguing isn't it. And I'm sure it is something we may see more of over the years.

But as Nico says, the ego's of these guys may get in the way. Coaching a driver is very different to, say, football coaching. In football you are coached for various things that need to be kept on top of, such as team work, fitness, and intricate skills.

Tell an F1 driver, in particular, he's getting a coach and he'd probably think he was getting driving lessons, that he is inadequate, which may go down like a granite balloon! Ego's do that.

Nico, it seems, has no ego.

[kevinq]

I didn't read the Nico interview but surely most drivers in F1 (and the lower series) are "coached" by the engineers in the team during de-briefs/data reviews. Whether or not they take the advice on board is another thing

Personally, I believe an F1 level driver would take advice from an experienced engineer before listening to another driver (particularly if the coach is/was not a top level driver themself).ie. you may listen if MS gives you some tips but not if it was coming from some guy who raced F3 15 years ago.

Although I couldn't be further from a top driver, I recently had to attend a 'driver training' course to obtain a racing licence and I couldn't take the instructor's advice seriously after he made numerous basic vehicle dynamics errors during his earlier "lessons". Peter Findlay, are you out there

[JeremySmith]

I think it's a fantastic idea, if you can get them to leave their ego at home..Good on you Nico!

[mac]

It's as much about the mental approach as technique.

I know a driver who has always been extraordinarily fast, but has often had problems keeping things on the straight and narrow because he was conditioned to always drive at 11/10ths.

During the last off-season said driver visited a sports psychologists. He has since finished every session of competition this season, has won 50% of the series events this year and is comfortably leading the championship.

He says he has a new way of approaching his driving and now processes his thoughts much beter. He has learnt to drive with his head and not his heart.

[gfm]

My points exactly. And even team engineers need to be handled correctly though it would be true to say that exposure to some of the top GP boys, would leave them with useful driving or racing technique information, but they will/may have a very distinct way of handling it! But qualifying the info you are fed (your point kevinq) is just part of the package.
I think the principal message from Rosberg is that for a GP newcomer, like so many other big-monied roles, there is a lot of wheat to diseminate and distract.
All they really want to know is how to win a Grand Prix, and how to win a World Championship. Bombarded with all the data and info as he is, they have to optimise their performance during a GP which will involve loads of modern (race) craft and guile, patience, making breaks and not making mistakes. And then doing it again.
Clever stuff and big business.
Rosberg displays an uncommonly very mature approach to his racing I think, but it is what I'd expect from the intelligent son of a great World Champion.

[Jimisaracer]

I think a lot of them do use driver coaching but probably stay rather quiet about it. Didn't a recent Top Gear piece indicate that Jackie Stewart was still doing some driver coaching to top drivers. There are some other names out there as well that escape me at the moment who are known to teach top talent.

[GarrettMacD]

Originally Posted by Jimisaracer

There are some other names out there as well that escape me at the moment who are known to teach top talent.

I think the coach most often quoted is Rob Wilson. I belive he is/was contracted to McLaren, and has coached Coulthard, Raikkonen, Montoya etc.

There are also numerous ******ology artists who claim to coach F1 drivers, but can't reveal their name due to 'confidentiality' reasons. Which seems to be a good way to get lots of people to pay you ££££'s to get some coaching on a track day. You may not get any quicker, but at least you can say that you've been coached by the same bloke who coaches driver 'X'. Driver 'X', of course, could be Jean-Denis Deletraz, Giovanni Lavaggi, Yuji Ide... you get the point!

[Gt_R]

On the surface, what Nico mention is interesting and valid, something which set me thinking for some time.

However, i think while coaching of fundamentals are more useful and has a greater impact at junior levels of racing, by the time you are in F1, you should be "ready" to compete.

True, many young drivers come into F1 and still face a steep learning curve. But F1 has a "coaching" system in place. There is the personal fitness trainer to oversee fitness as in soccer or other sports. In terms of driving the car itself, it's hard for a old driver (say Jackie Stewart) teach Nico how to race a modern F1 car given the differences in the car characteristics (for sake, didn't Jackie Stewart recently just stalled one modern F1 car?).

What they can learn in terms of driving and handling the car they learn through experience with their teammates and such. Massa for example spent time as test driver with Rubens and Michael and admitted that it is hugely useful not just in terms of how MS and RB set up their car and their driving technique, but also their working style how to work with the team engineers.

Similarly, an engineer will propose ways of setting up or driving style adaptations in order to maximise the driver's potential with the car. Some drivers listen and adopt (HHF), some drivers don't (JV). and there's really no right or wrong way.

What is hard to teach is that besides thousands of miles of testing to fine-tune a driver's skills, the RACING aspect is very hard to learn, although what a driver should or should not do can be told.

[DavidStHubbins]

I think you'll find most of the F1 drivers have "mental/psychology" coaches. Or have used them in the past. They just keep quiet about them.

I know one current F1 hotshot, who used to have problems concentrating in races and who probably put the idea to Nico, and a World Champion saloon driver have used a sports pyschology coach because the coach was recommended to me by the latter's "driving" coach! Suffice to say, there was no helping me but the other two are doing very nicely indeed

I do think that the top F1 drivers should simply know the lines by themselves, and anything else they need should be given by the engineers. The mental side of things is different and there is certainly no harm in trying.

On a slightly different subject perhaps, Olivier Panis used to help out Mika and DC at race meetings by watching from different corners to see what other drivers were doing. I know he helped them a lot by seeing how the Ferrari's were riding the kerbs at Suzuka one year, gave them over half a second in just one corner! Those oldies may be old but they are definitely not useless

[JNWRF01]

I think driver coaching & F1 drivers is a lot more common than u think - esp in the "learning" years...I guess its their egos that stop it being common knowledge. Legend has it that John Stevens coached Mansell when he joined Williams and got him to race winning level.

Certainly Rob Wilson has coached most of the British F3 field for the last 15 years - and Martin Donnelly is now working for Comtec. Most F3/ForRenault teams have full time driver coaches - keeping the likes of Kelvin Burt, Danny Watts busy.... Add to this the 2MB business now bringing on the like of Paffett / Conway etc - shows how many ex F1 stars are helping coach/nuture new drivers.

Certainly for us club racers, the cheapest performance enhancement you'll get is a decent driver coach...

[DavidStHubbins]

Driver coaching is expensive but those F1 guys don't have the excuse of not being able to pay. Lucky ********!

Paul O'Neill was being coached while in BTCC by guys at Silverstone and came on in leaps and bounds, and I know of plenty of race-winning guys in Porsche Cup and so on who have "mentors" at Silverstone Racing School, who go out with them in saloons and hone their technique. Things such as letting your arms go loose down the straight and getting air in, controlling your breathing to get air into the brain etc, turning in to a corner correctly (it is harder than it seems) and things like getting tyres up to temp quickly before the start. These little things are often what seperates the top guys from those who are almost there. Little things that some might reasonably not think about, thinking that all it takes is to "go out there and give it some welly!" If only it was that easy...

[Splatz the Cow]

I don't think there is anything really new or surprising about this. The psychological side of motorsport has been trained for a long time. What might be new is making a big deal out of it in an article.

[gfm]

Splatz, you didn't read the post correctly. We're not saying the psychological side of top line racing is new, nor is Rosberg. We're talking about GP driver coaching as being underdeveloped in terms of race driving techniques necessary to win GPs. It's rare to have a live contender saying it would be useful.
Knowing how to win is the rare commodity for the newcomer.

[Rennen]

If you want a kid to become a Tennis Star, a Chess Master, a Violinist or a Racing Driver then you just start them young! I'm one of those that took (several actually) kids of 8yrs old and made them practice, practice, practice! (in go karts) It's a long road, Clive Wheldon, me John Button, Jim Paffett, Anthony Hamilton etc etc just made em go around and around for months, then raced them in clubbies, then the National Championships.

In our case we probable had done about a thousand individual kart races by the time AD was the top MSA junior champion at 15. Long before that time you know if they have all the ingrediants to progress to International karting, and beyond. The mental approach is key, whether it's dealing with the officials, or how they cope with intense pressure. Anyone here who has had the experience of just bringing up a child, has only done a fraction of what the dads above went through to turn our kids into winning racers with the right level of determination and focus. It was easy to spot the ones who had that special something.

At 16 I turned AD over to Terry Fullerton in International karting for 2 seasons, International karting is the most intense and most competitive form of motor racing out there. By the age of 17 he had had the input of 3 World Karting Champions. Before going professional with an Italian manufacturer, for a further 2 years, racing all over the world.

At the age of 19 with upteen International races under his belt, having raced against, the Kimi's & Jenson's etc etc you have to find a weathy backer or manager, to get them into exspensive racing cars. Coulthard had a rich father, Nico had his F1 dad, Lewis had Ron Dennis! We found a weathy enthusiast. Then young car racing drivers learn not just by racing experience, but from individual team bosses along the way.

The next trick is to actually get the opportunity for them to test an F1 car, not as easy as many may think, and even when they match the regular team race drivers, it doesn't atomatically follow that you'd graduate to a race seat! Why?...It's down to luck and opportunity, not talent (they all have that) It's all very well Rosberg being cocky having been lucky enough to have had advantages.

[gfm]

Much appreciate the post rennen; very interesting. So much depends upon being in the ‘right place right time’, people you know etc etc helping you engineer the career breaks. I can imagine that when you get to that level and the (race) upbringing has been so intense, there appears little necessity for further professional coaching on the racing technique.
Assuming AD substituted tomorrow for one of the regular drivers, how different is it to come up with a ‘correct’ race winning approach to the whole 90 minute GP? I can’t help but think that there’s quite a jump from going absolutely flat out lap after lap and have a good result come to you, verses that sort of ‘dominant’ ‘get out the way or I drive through you’ Senna-like menace.
The pumped-up pure-aggression style, in particular with regard to getting by the guy in front must be a sensational reputation to earn, rather than plateau out as being ‘merely’ a super-quick peddler.
It can’t be difficult for someone like AD to look at say, David Coulthard or even Jenson and think ‘no problem, can deal with him’; how do you get to the same conclusion when looking at Kimi or Alfonso? It’s going to need a particular brand of patient brilliance to unsettle one of them into making a mistake.
Intriguing. Do you settle and say, the best we can hope for today is to finish in the points and work on the strategy for that; or do you think ‘if we can unsettle this here or that one there, we’ll have a chance at a real result’? You almost need to factor in/ legislate for the opportunity for a bit of magic. You must end up praying for an unexpected opportunity, a pace car situation or rain, tyre weaknesses, and 'luck' as you point out.
Sorry to go on, but I can imagine that someone like Lauda or even Rosberg-senior if they took the trouble, could say, ‘what you need to do is work on this or that aspect’ and then you go looking for it.