The programme

Feel first, then name it

Most young drivers can explain weight transfer. Far fewer can feel it at the moment it matters. We coach the feeling first, and bring in the data once the body has understood.

Where it came from

Understanding is not the same as feeling

In our first year we kept meeting the same problem. A student would look at the telemetry, see that they were braking slightly too early and too gently, agree completely, and then do it again on the next lap. They understood the concept. They could not yet feel it.

In late 2025 a visiting Olympic coach spent an afternoon with us in the instruction room. In gymnastics, she told us, you do not describe the angle of a shoulder; you give the athlete something to feel, and the analysis comes later. We tried it there and then, on the g-force rig, with tennis balls on the seats so the students could feel where their weight was going. By the end of the afternoon one of them was describing her breakthrough to the others in her own words.

Motorsport has never had much of a coaching tradition. Drivers are mostly left to work it out. That afternoon gave us a way to teach it.

Drivers are expected to figure it out themselves or fail. I don’t want that for these kids.

Alexander Macalister Founder and Head Coach

The method

Three steps, in this order

  1. 1

    Feel

    First a sensation the student can recognise. On the g-force rig, in a stationary kart, or with a tennis ball on the seat that tells them where their weight has gone.

  2. 2

    Name

    Then the student puts it into words, in their own language, and explains it to another student. If they can teach it, they have it.

  3. 3

    Measure

    Then the data. The telemetry confirms what the body already knows, and shows how far it is from where it needs to be.

Two hands resting on a worn leather notebook with a pen tucked inside, on a desk covered in printed data sheets.
Session notes, written up by hand after every block. Photograph: Lena Hoffmann.

The aim

Drivers who can coach themselves

We will only ever see a student for a few weeks a year. So the aim is not a driver who needs us standing next to them, but one who can find the feeling on their own, name it, and check it against the data. Our performance-education syllabus does the same job off the track.

Alexander coaches in person and writes up each student’s progress in full after every session, so the next block starts where the last one ended. Bruno Galli, our assistant coach, is not much older than the students and has been racing since he was five. He knows when a driver needs pushing and when they need reassurance, and he is usually right.

Performance education

How we work with students

Five rules from Berto

Berto Marchetti has worked with around 200 young drivers in 40 years. These are the rules he brought with him, and they are now ours.
Character over talent
Speed can be developed. Being coachable, resilient and kind to mechanics is harder to teach.
Process over results
Results depend on equipment, weather and luck. Preparation does not. We judge the preparation.
The whole person matters
A driver who is failing at school or struggling at home will struggle on track too. We pay attention to both.
Honesty is kindness
Young drivers hear a lot of what they want to hear, usually from someone with something to sell. We tell them the truth.
There is life after racing
Most of our students will not reach Formula 1. Everything we teach should still be useful if they don’t.

The perfect line doesn’t exist as a destination. It exists as a direction.