David Coulthard on the cost of training young drivers

      Former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard mentioned the fantastic amount needed now to prepare a young driver…

      David Coulthard: “If you’re lucky, you can get by with eight million pounds to go from karting to Formula 1. A crazy amount.

      It doesn’t matter how the time is distributed and how many years you spend in karting, but let’s assume you’re between 8 and 15 years old. After karting, you spend one or two years in Formula 4, then Formula 3, where a season costs one and a half million, and Formula 2, where you need to pay just over two million.

      The amounts grow very quickly. I know from my experience – I had to spend hundreds of thousands on my son Dayton even in karting, and even more in racing, and he’s only in British F4.

      It’s an expensive sport where many truly talented athletes never make it beyond karting simply because they lack funding. But not all great footballers will make it to the team they would like to play for – scouts may not notice them, they may lose motivation, miss their chance, get injured, or something else may happen.”