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The Motorsport UK Academy was set up to give British drivers the best opportunity to grow and develop. Every year, it provides its cohorts with technical, tactical, mental, physical and nutritional advice, setting goals and planning their journey’ s next steps. Revolution spoke to a former Academy coach and manager, to find out how the Academy spots and nurtures talent to the top.
In the early days, we did some
World Rally Championship paring Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin representing Great Britain
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work around how you pinpoint talent in motorsport – because it’ s not easy. In cycling, for example, people just get on a bike and if they hit a certain wattage, they’ ve got potential. So, how do you do that in motorsport?
George Russell and Lando Norris grew and evolved, and they didn’ t stop growing and evolving. Lando, for example, was doing karts, but alongside that he had car programs, he was doing things on private tracks, working with a coach, running in Ginettas. He did so much purposeful practice, his training age was just huge – whereas people who went through the same ranks at the same time but didn’ t have that support were not able to maximise their value and get through that glass ceiling.
George was always very willing and keen, and he represented the UK early on in the FIA Karting Academy, which is when our relationship with him started. He went on to join the squad programme, so we did a fair bit of work with him in the younger years, and his trajectory was always going quicker than a lot of people,
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