Coulthard puts his driving experience in F1 to clever use
I’M A sceptic when it comes to any type of self-help book, primarily because I reckon many of the nuggets of wisdom contained therein merely state the blindingly obvious. Therefore, it was with a certain degree of trepidation that I sat down to read David Coulthard’s ‘The Winning Formula’ when I saw the sub-title: ‘What F1 Teaches Us About The Business Of Life’.
It was going to take a lot to impress me, given that premise. After all, how on earth could a sport that has seen millions of pounds invested and huge technological advances made be applicable to simple day-to-day living?
I may have been ready to ridicule the concept, but Coulthard won me over with his sound opinions and the many interesting anecdotes he shared from his career behind the wheel.
The Scot was runner-up in the 2001 world drivers’ championship, and at one point his win rate was the fifth best of all time.
However, that meant nothing in his own view, pointing out that nobody remembers who finished fifth in the 100 metres final at the Olympics, or which team was fifth in last year’s Premier League.
Coulthard is also opposed to the modern-day fixation with rewarding all children equally for their sporting endeavours.
He makes the case that they need to learn to deal with the disappointment of defeat in order to prepare properly for the big bad world, and I couldn’t agree more.
The Formula 1 scene that Coulthard inhabited offered a stark contrast between the individual and the collective.
The people in the spotlight are, and always will be, the drivers, but none of them would function without the immense input from the support team.
This became immediately clear to the author, now a successful entrepreneur and media figure, when he got his big chance in F1 in tragic circumstances in 1994.
He was the test driver for Williams when the great Ayrton Senna was killed at the San Marino Grand Prix, so he was upgraded to one of the team’s two seats a year earlier than anticipated.
Thrown in at the deep end, and amid widespread grief, he got to see teamwork at its very best as the various departments in the business pulled together to keep the show on the road.
Of course, anyone wishing to better themselves in their own walk of life will get nowhere unless they’re a self-starter with a strong work ethic, and that holds true no matter how many books of this nature are read.
In that regard, Coulthard was set a very good example by his parents, as they developed a very successful transport company from a remote base in rural south-west Scotland while travelling hundreds of miles at weekends while their son pursued his karting career.
One story about his father is worth sharing. At a point when times were tough, he opened a cupboard at home to find just one tin of Heinz beans, and nothing else.
Thinking on his feet, he rang the number for the company and tricked the receptionist into thinking he knew the name of their transport manager, but couldn’t remember it.
The unwitting lady put him through to the man in question, and the conversation that ensued led to Coulthard Snr. getting the lucrative contract to distribute their product in his area.
There’s actually a lot of useful nuggets in this book, not least the explanation of how a pit crew can change four wheels in 1.9 seconds. This sceptic has been won over!
ALAN AHERNE
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