The other day the FIA Institute asked me if I would help them out with their Academy programme, developing young drivers for a future in top level racing and rallying. It seemed like a good idea and so I flew to Edinburgh to have a look at the programme and conduct some interviews, to see how good the Academy pupils are at communicating. I knew only one of those involved, having met Alexander Rossi very early in his career and having kept in touch ever since.

I was interested to see what the Academy is all about because when you are in Formula 1 you tend to concentrate a little too much on the sport and not have time to look outside its boundaries as much as perhaps one should. I am fortunate in some ways in that I write a weekly newsletter about the business of global motorsport, which means that I have to keep on my toes in a lot of different disciplines, but I am aware that sometimes I am not paying much attention to the people who are moving up in the sport. It is never a bad idea to meet the next generation before they become stars and I was also keen to try to impress upon them that the policy of saying nothing interesting, which has been in Formula 1 for a lot of years now, is not the way to do things. Journalists need the drivers to have a bit of personality in order to get people enthusaistic about them. This gave me the chance to plant that idea with the young guys, most of whom were between 19 and 21. One was slightly older at 23.

Having seen the work that is going on I have to say that I am really impressed with the programme. There are quite a few academies these days but this one is not so much about teaching drivers things that most of them already know, it is more about assessing their progress, seeing where they are and how they can improve, and letting them use that information to their advantage. The Edinburgh workshop was not about actually driving the cars, but rather about how the youngsters prepare themselves for the job they have to do, both in terms of fitness and approach. The course took place at the University of Edinburgh with the 12 successful drivers being guided through various assessments by trainers involved in Elite Sports Performance (ESP), a company established by former World Rally Champion co-driver Robert Reid and Brian Cameron. The drivers were split into two groups, because of scheduling clashes which meant that I dealt with eight of the 12: Kevin Abbring, Albert Costa, Alon Day, Philipp Eng, Egon Kaur, Andreas Mikkelsen, Alex Rossi and Richie Stanaway, while Paul-Loup Chatin, Robin Frijns, Timmy Hansen and Stoffel Vandoorne had a separate session later in the week.

The fitness tests were designed to examine the different body composition, movement screening, core and neck muscle endurance of the youngsters, in addition to their blood lactate and heart-rate responses. They were tested for performance in temperature extremes, while away from the fitness side, they were able to discuss not only how to deal with the media, but also wider issues about the importance of their own “brands” and how make sure that they come across well in all different areas of their activities. Former F1 driver Alex Wurz was on hand as well in order to give his expertise based on first-hand experience, in addition to BTCC star Tom Onslow-Cole. The focus was very much on what the drivers need in order to make progress, which is rather different from schemes run by teams, which are generally looking to create what the team needs…

Having met all eight drivers and interviewed them all, I have to say that I was impressed. It is not easy to balance the levels of the different world regions but it was good to see an Israeli among the candidates, along with a New Zealander, an American and a spread of different Europeans.

I was asked to play a few journalistic tricks on them to see how they coped, asking them questions that might get them into trouble, and so on. My view about interviewing is that you really get the most out of it when the driver is relaxed and so I always try to set them at ease and do not play tricks. Gaining trust is really important although there are always going to be some journalists who are out to create headlines if a driver says the wrong thing. I felt it was important to make sure that the group understood that the media is not the enemy and that most of the press will be supportive of drivers, but that they must be aware of the few who might try to trick them into creating a headline and what not to do. I guess in this respect I was something of a poacher teaching trainee gamekeepers what to do. Being aware of the broad range of the media is important. I decided that the best thing would be to let them try to deal with a couple of questions that could lead them into trouble, and a couple to assess their diplomatic skills, and their own view of themselves (which is important in forming media opinions). The results were fascinating. I asked them all about their backgrounds and how they got started. This helped to set them as ease, because they were all within their own comfort zones and I heard some wonderful stories – most of them fairly intelligible, although in one or two cases the language was a bit of a problem. English is the language of motorsport and it is important that all those competing at a high level can express themselves well in that language. That may not be right nor fair, but such is life. I was impressed by the skill with which Israel’s Alon Day coped with the question of how he started in racing. I asked the queston and he replied that he was the youngest of a group of brothers who liked to mess about with engines and were very competitive. So, I said, you were involved in illegal drag races on the streets? There was a twinkle in his eye and he said that it was not something that he intended to discuss and we moved on to find out that he had turned down the opportunity to be a fighter pilot with the Israeli Air Force, and had done commando training.

“Being a fighter pilot is the F1 of Israel,” he said. “I gave that up because I wanted to be a racing driver.”

Andreas Mikkelsen, from Norway, was training to be an international skiier when he damaged his knee and, while waiting to recover, he amused himself by taking an old car up to a frozen lake and learning to drive on ice. I discovered that Austria’s Philipp Eng was studying journalism because it would be useful in his racing career, and would be an alternative career if things did not go well in the future.

The questions about their own image of themselves produced some interesting results as well, with one, who best remain nameless, saying the Robert Kubica was “humble – like me”, at which point I explained that this was perhaps not the best way to display humility!

There were two tricky questions which I felt would examine their understanding of what to say and what not to say: Was it right to cancel the Bahrain Grand Prix; and was Robert Kubica stupid to have gone rallying just before the start of the F1 season. The Kubica question proved to be a lot easier for most of them and only one of the eight said something that would have created a bad headline. Most were both honest and sensible in their replies. Some thought it was a good idea, some thought it was not.

The question of Bahrain produced a little more trouble. The majority answered the question as one would expect, with the question of the safety of those taking part, but there were a couple of real wild cards, including one driver who fell headlong into one of the traps that I set for him, describing the Bahrain government as “quite corrupt at the moment”, which would have given me plenty of ammunition to write a negative story if that was what I had wanted to do. Another talked about tanks and death, which I felt was more detail than necessary, while a third waffled on about the geopolitical situation in the Middle East in a way which showed that he had very little understanding of any of it – and so was advised to be a little more careful. There was one other point which I felt was important and that was to discover whether the drivers had any real grounding in what I call “the real world”, which showed a wide range of responses, including: “Is something happening in Libya?” which was a good illustration for me about the way some people in motorsport can be, if they are not careful…

Most of them seemed to be aware of the world around them and I felt that the general level of ability and maturity was impressive. It was also fascinating to see who did well with public speaking and who was better in a one-to-one interview.

So what did they think about the FIA Academy?

“For me it is valuable to have access to training like this,” said New Zealander Richie Stanaway. “It is good to focus on all the different areas and see where we are strong and weak. lt is all valuable experience that we can use.”

Spain’s Albert Costa agreed: “We are all young drivers and we need to improve everything. A lot of drivers are fast but you need to be more than that. This is very good news for us. This teaches us what we need.”

For Alon Day it was “a great tool for me. I know what I want and now I know what I need. I can develop here to a really high level. I hope so.”

Estonian rally driver Egon Kaur was another who was keen to embrace the opportunity.

“It is of great value to me,” he said, “and I am trying to make use of it and get the maximum out of it. So far I have learned mainly from my own experiences and I probably don’t have all the right answers to everything. I am trying to get them here and to develop.”

Eng has been racing internationally for several years but still felt that there was a great deal to be learned.

“It is a big investment from the FIA having all these people here and we are getting very, very good information and a good education,” he said. “I am happy to be part of it. You don’t only learn things for racing, but you learn things for life as well. If you don’t make it into professional racing you are still better prepared. The class about nutrition was very interesting for me.”

Mikkelsen too has achieved a lot already, but is still finding things to learn.

“It is a very very interesting,” he said. “I know a lot about rallying but it was interesting to see how racing drivers are performing, and how they prepare themselves. I have been finding small things that I can use to improve. The best thing is that you are asking yourself: ‘Am I doing things correctly?’ and there are people who can tell you. I did not do that before. There are lot of things to learn about improving different elements of performance, many of which I did not even know about before!”

Rossi was also impressed.

“I had no idea of what to expect,” he said. “Coming out the other side, I have to say I have been very, very pleased; I really took a lot from it and it was a really cool experience. We all go there as race drivers able to drive fast, but with a basic understanding of fitness and media relations and the other things like that. Edinburgh has shown us how important the peripheral work is to the driving. ESP has taken us to the next level with this training and really opened everybody’s eyes to what it takes to get to the top. Having Alex Wurz in Edinburgh, training along side us, was fantastic as well. It came as no surprise to see how strong Alex is, he’s known for being one of the most physically fit race drivers around. It was really useful to be able to take a look at what he was doing and use him as a baseline in our own work.”

No doubt as word gets out about the programme there will be more and more clubs around the world, sending their youngsters in to the assessment for next year’s Academy – and I will be watching to see which of “my boys” make it to the top.