Formula E / LAT Images
FEATURE
“ The current Academy set-up has a large number of unique selling points. It is the only competitor academy in motorsport that is led directly by the national governing body and it supports aspiring drivers and co-drivers across any discipline of the sport, which offers huge opportunities for cross-discipline learning.
“ We have a number of world leading practitioners delivering on our Academy programme and as well as supporting the participants with motorsport-specific skills, we also expose them to other Olympic and Professional sports, which gives them the opportunity to learn from other high-performance and high-pressure environments.
“ The keys to success are the same in all sports – having a thirst for learning; being relentless in reflecting on your performance and using that to set goals for the next one; and behaving like an athlete, thinking about things like mental preparation, nutrition, sleep, and many other areas that can create a competitive advantage.
“ At the Academy, we don’ t have a first team squad, or a Team GB, and we are not preparing drivers to all play for the same team, so its purpose is slightly different, but the important
Jake Dennis, Formula E driver Graduated: 2019
Dennis worked his way up through European singleseater championships and finished fourth in GP3 while at the Academy. After a successful stint in GT and Endurance Racing, he switched to Formula E in 2020, where he quickly became a race winner and clinched the 2022-23 World Championship. He currently drives for Andretti Formula E.
Nick Yelloly, ELMS driver Graduated: 2016
Yelloly began in single seaters in 2008, rising from Formula Renault UK to GP2 by 2014 before making a switch to sportscar racing. Since graduating from the Academy, he has enjoyed success in GT and Endurance Racing and has also worked as an F1 simulator driver, most recently for the Aston Martin team.
similarity is that we are not just helping on the technical skills, we are also helping on that wider psychological, emotional and environmental development.
“ What we have in the Academy at the moment, and what we are moving further towards the future, is for a person first, driver second approach. That is very consistent with how other talent development programs or academies are set up across different sports, and they all need really clear standards for deployment.”
Perhaps the most important aspect of the academy for Hartley is accessibility for all. When F1 first raced in China, Michael Schumacher remarked that there was probably a future F1 champion driving around the streets of Shanghai, but they just had not been spotted yet. The same could be said for aspiring youngsters all around the UK.
Football operates a well-developed talent development system, with the FA supporting and keeping an eye on development from the elite in the England training camp at St George’ s Park right down to the players in junior
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Revolution- May 2025