Edd Straw on a driver’s motivation
You cannot coast in elite sport, it’s too competitive for that. As the old aphorism states, getting to the top is the (relatively) easy bit, it’s staying there that’s the greatest achievement. That’s what makes the longevity of drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost so astonishing. Time and again they return to the well to draw the motivation and determination required to stay at the top longer than anyone else. That source ultimately runs dry for everyone, for even the greatest cannot defeat time.
Determination is just part of the equation, despite those who reduce sporting competition to ‘who wants it more’. If it was everything, Sebastian Vettel would not be standing at the career crossroads he’s currently facing. He torpedoed the understandable suggestions his desire might have waned with his actions in the Russian Grand Prix, where he capitalised on the pre-race agreement that ensured Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc did not fight him into Turn 2 to take the lead then declined to cede his advantage when requested. No matter that he admitted he was wrong to do so ahead of the Japanese GP – talk is cheap, after all – but that gambit showed his ruthless determination to reassert himself.
Vettel is not a busted flush yet – but he’s not far off given Leclerc has consistently outpaced him. Fortunately, he still has things to cling onto – his gain of 5.3s in traffic during the Singapore GP, his race pace at Russia and the evolving car characteristics that are better suited to his style. But it boils down to the challenge so many have faced over the years – do you still want this enough, and if you do can you make it happen? And just to make it more complicated, both Vettel and Leclerc are pulling every trick in the book to ensure they become the dominant force.
It’s a dynamic that’s unique in motorsport.
Individual driver and team objectives are mostly aligned, but never entirely so. Teams will coalesce around the stronger performer, the only time they might not is during a transition phase when the old stager still has their lustre and the rising star is still establishing themselves. This unavoidably creates conflict.
We’ve seen many reactions to this over the years, simply because it’s so rare for a driver to retire at the top. Prost, Jackie Stewart, Nico Rosberg, Mike Hawthorn and, despite his occasional appearances in 1958 as reigning champion, Juan Manuel Fangio are the only drivers to stop as reigning champion – while Jochen Rindt never even had the chance to do so thanks to his untimely death. There are others who stopped while still operating at a high level, for example Michael Schumacher first time round, but perfectly-timed exits are vanishingly rare. Great sportspeople don’t know when to give up, the downside of which is that they often don’t realise when they have to.
For some, determination fades before skill, but for Vettel it’s the other way round and it is possible his motivation remains while his overall output has not improved to keep pace. Ferrari isn’t the perfect environment for him, but its reasonable to assume the situation would be similar if he was at either of F1’s other two powerhouses, Red Bull and Mercedes, assuming the ongoing presence of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. We can only guess the nature of the battle going on inside his head, for it must be easier to reconcile a loss of motivation, hard as that is, than it is when you are as determined as ever but can’t deliver. He’s still in the game, and should never be underestimated, but is very much on the back foot.
Alain Prost, when facing Ayrton Senna at Mclaren, realised he was unwilling or unable to go to the extremes of his teammate in qualifying but remained a formidable competitor thanks to his intelligence and race pace. Even when largely coasting in his final season in 1993, he was able to win the title comfortably thanks to his intelligence, turning it on when he really needed too, and a Williams-renault car advantage.
Prost himself saw off Niki Lauda at Mclaren in the mid-1980s. After winning the ’84 title, which is often put down purely to Lauda’s racing savvy and experience but actually owed a little more to Prost’s bad luck. Even so, he was still plenty good enough but slipped in ’85 and realised he didn’t have it in him to take the fight to the rising star anymore. For individuals used to excellence, to being the best, this must be terrifying to face. Even for a 32-year-old with family, that’s a big
slice of your identity that is threatened.
This is why the way you face down these challenges is a measure of greatness, extending the peak for longer than one successful patch. A driver like Fernando Alonso is rightly included in this category given his performance level even through the long title drought that made up much of his time in F1. It’s about finding new ways to dig deep and improve yourself, learning from the new ideas, the new skills and techniques of the next generation.
Young drivers today are so much better prepared than their predecessors despite the paucity of testing. Running in driver-in-loop simulator systems not only gives them valuable virtual seat time, but embeds them in a way of working with a team that the older drivers had to learn on the job. The newcomers can learn the tricks of experience more quickly, because many of them are now transparent and captured in data, then add their own new ideas and experiences at a time when they are more malleable. Vettel has clear ideas of how the car should handle, but perhaps he needs to open his mind to whether those ideas should be redefined for modern machinery.
This is something everyone can understand. In every industry, those with experience will be faced by newcomers with different ideas, approaches and outlooks. Those who thrive will be the ones that adapt and remain open minded while retaining motivation.
It’s not about Vettel being ‘found out’ or devaluing his success at Red Bull. Instead, this is a generational battle to be relished. Like so many before him, Vettel seems destined to lose this fight – but in the determination to push as hard as he can to the last shows the competitive spirit that made him a four-times champion still burns brightly, even if other aspects of his game don’t.
IT’S NOT ABOUT VETTEL BEING ‘FOUND OUT’ OR DEVALUING HIS SUCCESS AT RED BULL. INSTEAD THIS IS A GENERATIONAL BATTLE TO BE RELISHED