What about your work with FIA programmes? It goes further than just racing.
When you think of race driver training you think of performance training and how to corner better and how to set up the car better. But there’s so many people out there who give up everything for racing, including even their houses and cars and then just don’t make it so I said I would love to build up a social safety net for racing drivers whose ambition is to give up their education, their family life and then it comes to nothing. So we educated them as road safety trainers, road safety ambassadors through my company Test & Training. It had super cool results. We have factory racers in the Rally World Championship. We have guys coming through to F1 now and we have guys who didn’t make it in racing but are now leading instructors for manufacturers, driver training and safety courses, so it paid off really well and they’re all way more open to the concepts of safety. Old-school people think racing is just about full gas and loud engines, which yeah I love too but our society is moving on to a very safety-orientated and that was the programme we did with the FIA. My work is completely independent from the FIA. They just use me sometimes as a service provider for research studies.
I mention the FIA because people say why isn’t Alex a team manager? They’ve also said one day he might run FIA. Want to comment on that?
No because when you see how I work, I’m not the front man, I’m quite happy to be just there and help to make a difference. I’m way more happy to work in a team to work together rather than elbowing everyone out of the way.
I’m not a pushy dad. I see my dad laughing when I have to go to the kart shop and buy three sets of new tyres or three sets of overalls
You’ve got your three boys. Your father was obviously a big influence on you. I can remember going to see him in Rallycross in England. Is your father’s influence going down to another generation now? Are you a pushy karting dad?
I’m not a pushy dad. I see my dad laughing when I have to go to the kart shop and buy three sets of new tyres or three sets of overalls. It’s funny. I never wanted them to touch a go-kart or even see a kart track because I know how difficult it is in this sport to actually succeed, but at the same time I don’t want to stop them, because if they have an ambition they should go for it. I met Mika Hakkinen and he said “you’re not letting your kids do karting? That’s really unfair! For them, you’re a race driver. For them, racing, they think it’s a job so why would you hold them back from actually trying? Because maybe when they’re 18 and you realise they have a real good driving skill, then it’s too late and they will be upset with you and you might be upset.” I thought that was a fair point. I’m very fortunate that I can afford to get my three boys on the karting track. And I have this carrot now which works so well because if they are naughty at home or not good in school, I say “Guys, next weekend, no karting, we’re not going testing” and then they’re working way harder. It became a very nice family activity, which we all, including Julia, (Mrs. Wurz) enjoy now and for this, I’m very happy I introduced them to karting.
Is Julia alright with it?
Yeah. Actually, she’s a bit more pushy than me. I just let them go and she says “get your act together. Work harder!” Anyway, I will always want to work because what else would you do?
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