BBC television has been highlighting the country’s only course designed for racing drivers, based at Loughborough College.
The unique programme, created by Motorsport UK in association with the College, offers the skills needed to make it as a professional - and BBC East Midlands Today Sport reporter Angela Rafferty visited the College to discover more.
Loughborough College Motorsport student Tom Wood drives an Aston Martin: “There are kids out there going to college and kicking a ball around with their mates at the weekend … I do pinch myself. I can’t believe how fortunate I am to be here.”
Hannah Long, who says her mum was, “a little bit shocked. She wanted a dancer and she got a racing driver”, talks about gaining detailed motor vehicle knowledge, which enables drivers to understand their car and effectively feed back to their teams.
The two year course at Loughborough College also supports the aspirations of 40 drivers with one on one coach reviews, analyzing their on track performance and looking at where it might be improved. In addition there is training in nutrition, psychology and communication. Fitness testing is with Porsche. Eliot Challifour, from their Human Performance Centre, explained: “It’s not only training for performance it’s also training to be more injury-resilient and it’s training for health as well.”
Mental health is a major priority in racing’s high pressure environment. Hugh Gilmore, a sport psychology consultant working with the young drivers, said: “They are not just athletes, they are people and they have to think of their mental and physical wellbeing and their life outside sport, so it’s about achieving that balance.”
“Twenty or thirty years ago, it was all about sacrificing everything to be a racing driver or rally driver. Now it’s completely different. The teams don’t want that. You can’t survive in the sport unless you have an education,” said Greg Symes competitor pathway manager at Motorsport UK.