Details on how to become a race driver starts off this week’s Driver Development Roundup as I feature a great video that gives you a taste of what to expect.
I also look at the role that the Feed Racing school in France played in the burgeoning career of a Team Canada Scholarship winner and why Enzo Trulli decided to race in Japan.
All this and more in this week’s edition of the Driver Development Roundup on Motorsport Prospects.
Can any geek off the street be a real racer? If you are reading this you are probably asking that very question. For a no holds bar look at what it takes to become a race driver, have a look at the experience of Jeremiah Burton from Donut Media in the video above.
Formula Scout looks at how Feed Racing in France helped prepare Team Canada Scholarship winner Kevin Foster to race in Europe. Launched in 2019, FEED Racing France is a scheme founded and fronted by 1997 Formula 1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve and former CART driver Patrick Lemarie and has so far provided scholarships for three drivers to race in Formula 4.
“But FEED Racing is the way how to learn how to drive a racing car. So you can, with the technique you learn in FEED Racing, you can adapt to all these F4 cars. So having a little bit more power [in French F4], it wasn’t a problem for Kevin. For example, the first test at Nogaro, we went there and he was P2. He’d never driven the car before, it was just the FEED car before. I think the Gen2 is pretty similar, with everything a little bit better. So it’s not a big change.”
Courtney Crone is seeing the rewards of the IMSA Diverse Driver Development Scholarship both on and off the track. “The scholarship obviously provided this opportunity this year for me,” she said, “and just to have IMSA’s support and all of IMSA’s partners – Michelin, VP, OMP, Recaro, just everybody. As they say, it takes a village to do this and they’re all a little piece of my village. I’m super grateful for that and hope to keep pushing with IMSA to help the diversity side of things and keep showing that we can all race together and have a good time. I’m fortunate to be the one that gets to be the ambassador for that.”
Enzo Trulli explains why he decided to race in Japan to help him progress to becoming a professional race driver. “Japan for motorsport has always been a very important pole with the presence of very large manufacturers, moreover, in recent years in Europe motorsport has increasingly become a business while in Japan the mentality is more to create a winning team: this is why we came here because there is more chance of becoming a professional and the races are fantastic on top of that.”
New research released by More than Equal shows that fans are ready to support female drivers, will reward sponsors who back them and see no reason why women shouldn’t compete at the highest levels. James Allen of Autosport meets More than Equal CEO Ali Donnelly to find out the next steps.
“You make an assumption that there are quite traditional perceptions that people hold about the ability of female drivers. And I think what the research shows is that those are outdated; people don’t feel like that anymore. People believe universally, almost across all genders, ages and regions, that women are absolutely capable of driving at the very top of motorsport, if they are given the same resource, the same opportunities as young male drivers. So being able to dismiss those stereotypes and say, ‘Actually, the world moved on quite a bit’, was quite important.”
DHL and Club Athena will collaborate for the ‘Girls At Track’ initiative at IndyCar’s upcoming race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS). Loxley Browne, chief executive of ClubAthena.org: “Our STREAM club provides girls ages 11 to 18 with the chance to explore and discover new career paths. Imagine realising how your love of inventing, researching, drawing, or organising can lead to a job with an innovative race team like Andretti Autosport, as a team member trackside working on the car, creating the graphics and branding that promotes the team, or supporting the team’s business pursuits.”
100 girls from local primary schools enjoyed a day at Stamford Bridge as FIA Girls on Track UK and the Chelsea Foundation ran their first joint event. They took part in a range of activities, including Microsoft’s AI initiative and sessions on media & fitness involving F1 Academy drivers, aimed to encourage them into STEM subjects with a sports-themed twist.
NGSC Sports offers tips for navigating complex sports contracts and rules. “In professional sports, contracts and rules can often be complex and overwhelming. Whether you’re an athlete, an agent, or a team owner, understanding and navigating these intricacies is crucial for success. In this blog post, Damarius Bilbo of Klutch Sports provides valuable tips to make sense of complex sports contracts and rules, breaking them down into easy-to-understand concepts.”
Author: Mark Boudreau
Mark is the publisher of Motorsport Prospects. As a former lawyer, he applies his legal background and research skills to assist race drivers by showcasing the resources they need to make their motorsport careers happen.