Racing skills are only part of an aspiring driver’s needs

The cost of getting a driver into Formula 1

What a race! Abu Dhabi delivered one of the most exciting grand prix races I have had the chance to witness. Packed with drama, it surely must go down as the race of the season with Kimi Raikkonen making a welcome return to the top of the podium, Fernando Alonso muscling his way to second, and Sebastian Vettel’s astounding race through the field to claim third place.

 A seven-star race at a seven-star venue!

Much has been written about the race around the sparkling Yas Marina, but the subject I want to tackle this week is how much money does it take to get a young driver from karting, through the junior categories, to knocking on the door of a F1 team. It was a question I was asked numerous times in the build-up to our home grand prix in Abu Dhabi.

Let’s create a fictitious young race driver: Saeed Al Speedy – a 15-year old Emirati and a prodigious talent who has completed six successful years of junior karting in the UAE Rotax Max Challenge series. He could perhaps even have been to a couple of Rotax Max world finals along the way and is now ready to embark into the world of car racing.

Bear in mind that the six years of karting would have set his parents back anything between Dh400,000 to Dh800,000.

To get young Al Speedy up to speed in driving a race car, it would be useful to start with the Formula Gulf 1000 series which is run in the UAE and gives drivers a taste of open-wheeler racing. Small grids, quality tuition and important experience away from karting.

The series is run during the European off-season and provides an ideal testing ground before a move to racing abroad. Somewhere around Dh276,000 will get him a seat for the season.

At this time Al Speedy and his minders (make that family) will have a choice of a number of junior single-seater series in Europe – Formula Renault, Formula BMW, Formula 3 to name some.

For our hypothetical driver, the decision is made to run in the Formula Renault 2.0 which is part of the well promoted World Series by Renault and a popular stepping stone to the very top. For this endeavour Papa Al Speedy will have to write a cheque of around Dh1.6 million for a reasonable team offering plenty of testing essential for a driver to develop.

Irrespective of results, the first year in the Formula Renault 2.0 series will be a steep learning curve, not only for the driver but also for the family who will have to adapt to the gypsy lifestyle while the young driver races and studies at the same time.

For Saeed, now 17 years old, a second year in the same series would be handy, thus another Dh1.6 million will have changed hands. Hopefully, in the second year the youngster will score some wins and start raising eyebrows.

With a good showing under his belt, at 18, and Dh 1.6-million poorer it is probably a good time for Al Speedy to move away from the World Series by Renault, for a season, and sample a season of GP3 racing which runs as a support race series during European grand prix weekends. Here the cost for a year with a good team would be around Dh3 million; but the exposure would be immense and the experience on grand prix circuits invaluable.

At 19 years of age it is time for him to move back to the World Series by Renault to contest the highly competitive Formula Renault 3.5 category. Again a seat in a good team is essential, testing paramount and thus a two-year deal would be best at this point as it sends the right signals while ensuring continuity.

The bill? Make that Dh9 million for two seasons at a discounted rate.

For Al Speedy the two years in the Formula Renault 3.5 series turn out to be a success. He shows great pace, is popular among drivers and fans, notches up a few wins in his first year, and battles for the title in the second year. The lad is ripe to move up to the final tier before Formula 1.

The logical next step is GP2 and again a good team. Papa Al Speedy must make that cheque out to a chosen team for Dh8 million for a season, or better still a discount for two years. Thus Dh15 million will do the trick for the premier F1 feeder series.

Al Speedy is 21 years old at this stage, will be 22 after his second year in GP2 and hopefully will be knocking on the F1 door. The cost to get him to that point?

A whopping Dh30 million at rates being quoted today.

Add to the bill flights, hotels, car hire and all the inevitable expenses that come with racing abroad. Not a cheap exercise in anyone’s books.

This may seem a bleak prospect to anyone harbouring ambitions to become a racing driver and particularly parents inspired by the grand prix heroes we saw in action during the Abu Dhabi grand prix weekend. But it is the reality.

Irrespective of the talent a kid like Saeed Al Speedy has, money is 99 percent of the time the only thing that is going to ensure a youngster makes his way to the top, while a seat in a Formula 1 team is no guarantee despite whatever money is spent.

On the flip side, with proper management a young driver can attract sponsors and even backing from government, which these days is almost essential as few people have thirty million lying around in the bank. But truthfully everyone in the sport knows sponsorship of this magnitude and duration, to finance a five year plan of this nature, is very hard to come by.

And that’s perhaps why most kids and their families opt for football: cheaper and if you have real prodigious talent with a ball – like Saeed Al Speedy has for motorsport - you will certainly play for a top team and certainly get paid loads of money in the process.

The writer is the corporate communications manager at Dubai Autodrome