Racecraft & Driver Development Roundup for July 18, 2022

This week’s Racecraft & Driver Development Roundup features a number of great racecraft tips as well as a wide assortment of driver development news. In Racecraft there are autocross tips, braking techniques from Ross Bentley and more. In Driver Development, Enzo Mucci helps you get through a disappointing season, Belinda Riseley and Brad McIntyre explain how to get started in motorsport fitness, Revolution UK looks at overcoming disability in motorsport and more. I also have two driver spotlights that should both inspire and inform you.

Racecraft Tips & Techniques

• In the video above, Grassroots Motorsports explains how to chop time off your autocross runs.

• Your Data Driven asks the question regarding better car handling, Will Stiffer Suspension Help You? “What I can help you with is thinking through the puzzle. This will help you understand what is going on, decide what good looks like and give you a clear direction.”

• Ross Bentley answers the question, should I always brake as late and hard as I can for every corner? Is there ever a reason for braking lighter?

Driver Development News & Resources

• Having a terrible season? In the video above, Enzo Mucci explains How To Turn Your Terrible Year / Season Around.

• The Motorsport Coaching Podcast with Belinda Riseley has a great edition on Getting Started With Motorsport Fitness Training with Brad McIntyre. You can listen here.

• With the season he has been having, you know that this comes from the heart. Here are Daniel Ricciardo’s tips on resiliency and staying positive.

• The FIA Women in Motorsport Commission has unveiled the names of the 14 girls from around the world who will take the next step in the program at the Circuit Paul Ricard. This selection follows a worldwide detection among 146 national sporting authorities (ASNs), with each nominating promising young drivers with national or international racing experience. Congratulations to all and good luck!

• To promote and drivers from a variety of backgrounds to participate in its sanctioned series, IMSA is continuing its Diverse Driver Development Scholarship program worth $250,000, and the application process for 2023 is open through July 22. The application, along with additional details on the process for the 2023 IMSA Diverse Driver Development Scholarship are available at imsa.com/diversity.

• Revolution, Motorsport UK’s member magazine has an inspirational article on Overcoming Disability in Motorsport.

• Revolution also has a great article on Pro Simulators. “Spending time in a simulator is now almost a must for any competitive racer, from the club scene to the cutting edge. Revolution spoke to the experts to discover how they work and how they can help.”

• The Red Bull website has an excellent podcast episode on The Search for an American Driver. “Two decades before Drive to Survive dominated American F1 attention spans, Red Bull engineered a search to find the next American F1 driver, and along with it, a scrapped reality TV show. Host, Andrew Lawrence, speaks with racer Scott Speed, the winner of the Red Bull Driver Search, and Maria Jannace, the brains behind the program.”

Driver Snapshots

Learning from the experience of others is key to succeeding in any walk of life and racing is no different. In Driver Snapshots, I will feature the experiences of various drivers where you can get some perspective on what they have gone through (and continue to go through) as they work to make their motorsport careers happen. I hope you can take some lessons from these experiences and apply them to your own motorsport careers.

• Warning: The video above contains disturbing and graphic videos and pictures. “Mark Petronis may very well be the worst-burned race car driver in history that managed to survive and tell the tale. Petronis incurred 3rd and 4th degree burns over 34% of his body after a racing impact found him unconscious and sitting in flames for over 3 minutes before he was rescued. In this 35 minute video he explains (and shows) the cause of the accident, the gear and people who saved his life, the extent of his injuries, details of his ongoing recovery, and his hopes for both his professional and personal futures.”

• Charlie Martin spoke to Formula E on her journey from motorsport’s grassroots to pro racing driver. “Ahead of her visit and as we come to the end of Pride Month, Charlie took the time out for a sit-down with fiaformulae.com to chat about her racing career right from grassroots to trophy-winning pro racing driver, her advocacy and what more motor racing can do to further inclusion and help generate positive change for the LGBTQIA+ community across motorsport.”