This month it is driver presentation month and since we are all looking up to drivers who are rather good I would like to talk about what makes a driver become good.
If you are looking at some of the best racing drivers then people will tell you they all got tons of talent. They tell you people like Senna, Keiychi, Imamura, Sainz or who ever are born that way. I think that is only half, maybe even less, of the story.
Keiychi at a rather young age
From my standpoint I think nothing is more important than practice. You can be born with as much talent as you want but if you do not go out and practice driving then you will never get anywhere. All good drivers spent thousands of hours in their cars, go-karts or whatever and practiced hard. This made them good and consistent. Of course there are other factors too but I see practice as the main aspect of getting good.
Senna during his go kart years
I tell all my drivers to use the practice time at race weekends as much as they can. This is not only very important for the qualifications but also for future driving.
Me fucking up during practice. But who cares!
We here at Speed Industries come across a lot of people building cars and having crazy projects but fairly often people forget to spend money on seat time. Do not get me wrong, we love crazy builds and sick cars but a driver is only as good as the weakest link and that is the driver itself a lot of times.
A rather CRAZY build 🙂
Speed Industries Top Tip:
So if you got a certain budget for a car always calculate something for driving it on a race track. This will also show you the weak parts of your car and before having a 600hp engine you might find out that some good brakes or just a decent steering wheel might also be a good investment.