Okay, this is kind of challenging, maybe bc youngsters then could possibly broaden their mind before write on the 'I am to be' assay. So if your kids is now not at school, lazy, stupid, or etc you will probably suggest this route of success to them better then selling something at flick or stuck at the low wage wallmart etc.

Drivers education system:
For drivers in motorsport, there is a system to go through just like a normal education. Their sport is a complicated one, where you have to match your experience and maturity with the machinery you use. I'll try and outline how it all works in today's article.

Cars
Every drivers' dream is to reach F1 and to do that you need to start driving early. It's competitive at the top and like squash, tennis, football and other sports which require complex skills that take time to master, you need to start young.

So a drivers' version of primary/secondary school is Go Karting. It's relatively cheap and slow enough for young karters from the ages of 8 to 18 to hone their art before making the step up to cars. Karting can be broken up to cadets (8 to 12 yrs old), Juniors (12 to 16) and then seniors (16 and above).

During their period in Karts, drivers need to try and achieve good levels of success so they can secure those magic sponsors. Whom without anymore progress would not be possible. There are exceptions to the rule, as some drivers are from families with almost endless amounts of cash to help pay for their kids to keep on making the step up.

From Karts, kids then make the next step up to driving single seaters (Formula cars), which you could equate to going to college. Now there are various different catogories to take that first step. There is Formula BMW, Formula Ford, Formula Renault or even touring cars (touring cars also have various levels, which we wont go into today).
They look like F1 but are low powered. Roughly 140 horse power. Our own Jazeman Jaafar is currently racing Formula BMW in Europe.

Then from there drivers progress to Formula 3 and there are many Formula 3 championships around the world. But the most well known one being Euro F3. These cars produce decent amount of downforce and have about 210 hp.

In Europe after F3 you can then move up to F2 (You may have heard of Henry Surtees tragic death in a F2 race around two weeks ago) or World Series by Renault (WSR). These cars also have more power and more downforce than a F3 car, roughly 400hp. Malaysia's Fairuz Fauzy is currently doing WSR.

Next is pretty much like doing the final year in University which is GP 2. Hamilton, Heikki, Glock, Piquet, Rosberg all came through GP2 before making the step (graduation) up to Formula 1. These cars are very sophisticated, producing lots of downforce and have about 600hp.
In performance terms they are very similar to A1GP.

It's like a great pyramid with the most drivers at the bottom doing karting and F1 at the top, where only 20 drivers a year get to compete.

Now there are many more championships around the world and other drivers have come to F1 in different ways (e.g. Montoya from Indycar) and they may skip a level or two occasionally (Raikkonen went straight to F1 from Formula Renault), but this is the basic route. Normally drivers would spend a year or two in each class before moving up.

What makes it difficult for us here in Malaysia is that we only have Formula BMW here in Asia. So our drivers need to find a lot of sponsorship to travel o Europe to progress. Currently we only have Fairuz Fauzy and Jazeman Jaafar racing in Europe. We have lots of youngsters coming through the ranks of Karts and F BMW, but they will also need to find a way to grab those illusive sponsors that will help carry them through their education to F1.

This sponsorship hunting is what makes motorsports especially difficult compared to other sports, as drivers need to learn PR and marketing skills to pay for their drives.

The reward is of course F1, which as everyone knows can be lucrative.

Ends.

copied from: www.stadiumastro.com/AlexYoong/tabid/266/Default.aspx?AlexYoongId=3

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