For quite some time coaching has been an intrinsic part of sport and has evolved into a huge global industry. From the early years of childhood, when swarms of kids descend onto football fields on Saturday mornings, they are led by a legion of qualified coaches helping them to accumulate and refine their core skills. From these early beginnings kids are in a pathway of coaching, mostly for fun but with some being selected on a fast track to sporting academies, and with the promise of a professional career of sport ahead of them. For those seeking the best support and advice, there is an endless selection of professional coaches, whether it be in tennis or golf or swimming.

Having worked for several years in the Olympic world and seen first-hand the coaching structures of over 30 different summer and winter sports, it is impressive how the Olympic sports have such a highly evolved and structured coaching environment. These combine generic aspects of sports performance, married together with the technical skills of their particular discipline. I had the good fortune to work alongside Sir Clive Woodward at the British Olympic Association, and with Sir Dave Brailsford when he was Performance Director of British Cycling, going on to work with Dave at Team Sky. So, I guess that I have some perspective of what‘ great’ looks like. The attention to detail and focus on extracting maximum performance is a highly evolved science, measured in the crucible of performance. And in the Olympic sports, against the exacting standards of government funding through UK Sport.

By contrast, motorsport has, to a very large extent, been on a different pathway when it comes coaching – and to the development and optimisation of the performance of the athlete. There are hundreds of driving coaches and instructors in the UK, and they deliver a valuable service to the community, but it is generally lacking in a formal structure of training and qualification. Even at the elite level, when I was working in the World Rally Championship and Formula One in the early 2000s, our management team was at the vanguard of developing High Performance Centres for our drivers and co-drivers. We were breaking new ground in considering how a holistic approach to the development of athlete performance could enhance the driver’ s ability to deliver at the highest level. I have reflected on why motorsport has lagged behind for so long, and I think it is in part due to the specific demands on a racing driver, and possibly something to do with the very real dangers associated with the sport, certainly historically. In addition, the use of a powerful and often complex piece of technology that needed to be mastered, was a world away from the broader sports industry view of athlete performance. I certainly remember growing up in my teens and twenties, surrounded by racing drivers, many of whom seemed oblivious to any notion that physical health and

Coaching can transform, develop, and improve the experience of competitors within motorsport

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Revolution- May 2025

JEP