Coaching Kart Drivers is Like Herding Cats
And so it should be! Racing drivers are meant to be a nightmare
I caught the end of an interview between Peter Windsor and Jock Clear (currently Ferrari driver development). Now, he said something I found to be quite astonishing:
"I think a lot of drivers struggle with being told how to by someone else... I don't think Federer sees [his coach] as someone who's telling him how to play tennis; he's helping him to develop his skill sets…”
Like what???
Racing drivers, who risk their lives, blow all their money and often sacrifice everything, to compete in what is essentially a blood sport, should be more like tennis players?!?!
Mate…
Tennis is a game, and quite a nice game. Racing is an all encompassing complete human warfare life - it is NOT a game!
Racing drivers are meant to be stubborn, arrogant, belligerent and an absolute nightmare to deal with. They are borderline killers!
Why would anyone want to change racing drivers to be more like tennis players?!? To make their own life easier?
Well, that’s the answer of course, they want to sterilise racing drivers so that they are easier to handle. Good luck to them and their academies fixing racing drivers lol. And of course its the fault of their upbringing in karting blah blah…
Every move they make has to be generated without interference in order to be fast and decisive. If they allow influence (well meaning advice included), they are being slowed down because they have to process it.
Anyway, once I calmed down from that youtube clip, I decided how to lay out what I’ve learned about dealing with racing drivers. The hardest thing in the world, as you know!
Why racing drivers should be un-coachable.
If racing drivers listened to good advice they wouldn’t be doing racing in the first place. It’s stupid and dangerous.
It is an individual pursuit of total loneliness, part of what we fall in love with as drivers is shutting out the world entirely and being completely alone to decide how to drive.
The racing driver is a self-reliance creature, a lone predator. They want to be in total control. Like cats they will totally take the piss out of you, let you feed them etc. But they will not be told what to do! That is in their nature.
In order to survive in a world as insane, corrupt, wasteful, expensive and shark infested - they need to develop incredible levels of self-reliance and stubbornness. Everything in racing says quit, this is stupid. If they listened they would!
That’s just part of why they are un-coachable nightmares. Whatever it is about drivers that makes them how they are, it also makes them superb.
So, we have to work with it, lest we want to neuter them and have nice compliant domestic drivers. What for I have no idea!
How to work with a kart driver
Drivers have a very strong sense of self. They want to become materially what they are deep down. A kind of monster/artist behind the wheel.
Nice psychologists call it self-actualisation, less nice philosophers call it the will to power.
Either way, there is a strong drive in them to become what they want to become, in their own way and on their terms. And, correctly they defend that very hard, because in general the world around them wants them to become; like my careers officer at school said:
‘why not aim for something sensible - what about a prosthetic limb engineer?’.
Madness…
Anyway, with a strong tendency in a creature to grow how it wants to grow, it needs to shut out a lot of outside influencers, who want it to grow their way instead. Especially in motor racing, there are a lot of big egos about, who want to impose their own will on drivers.
So, correctly racing drivers learn to close off influence. It makes a lot of sense when you understand how they operate in a racing machine.
Every move they make has to be generated without interference in order to be fast and decisive. If they allow influence (well meaning advice included), they are being slowed down because they have to process it.
Unfortunately for us, that means that you and I get shut down very quickly if we try to influence a driver, even though we are trying to help them achieve what they want!
So…
