Kart Coaches: From Draining them to Working at the Elite Level

Welcome to a free episode, don’t forget the audio version is not just me reading, I’m freestyling and there’s always more there than I write!

I’m always trying to resolve the major problem I have with being a coach. I don’t really want drivers to ever need help, yet here I am, providing help!

I want them to be independent, work things out for themselves—but at the same time I want to give them advice that means they get to the front fast.

How I do that is a bit of an art, depending on the characteristics of each driver. It’s an art because it’s full of contradictions and I have to play it by ear.

I can’t give you the exact ingredients of what works, but I can tell you how things go when it does.

It goes in stages, and drivers—as they go through stages—tend to go through coaches too!

Hopefully you can reach what I consider to be the final stage, where you get the absolute buzz of driving to your limit (which is magic enough), combined with the seamless synergy of coach and driver finding improvement between sessions.

Then you hit the track knowing exactly how to be quickest, or first to the finish line—every single time. When you have whole days where every session finds an improvement, those days become full weekends of improvement. Those weekends become wins. Those wins become championships.

1. The First Thing Every Driver Gets Wrong About Coaching

Drivers should use a coach to expand their thinking around driving—to get external observations, like a tool used by an exceptional driver. But at first, drivers want a coach to give them the answers, step by step, like a schoolteacher. Do this. Now do that. That’s what they think they want, but deep down, they also hate it.

The mistake is using a coach as the one who hands out all the answers. Do that, and you bypass the hard learning process that develops real mental toughness. You stay soft.

Most 'coaches' are more than happy to offer that kind of help too—because it's easy, and honestly, it’s fun. It doesn't require much confrontation or challenge. It’s just: here's what I do, do it. And if you can't, well, that’s because you’re not as good as me (which, to be fair, might even be true). Most people are looking for that kind of instant ABC at first.

2. Why You Should Copy Every Coach You Can Find—Then Leave Them Behind

So, coaches—especially in teams—are typically prescriptive. They give you “do this” type instructions. I recommend you use them and, as much as anything else, learn what they do and why. It’s a good way to get an understanding of how other people drive. The chances are you'll get through at least three if you are in a team, or go from team to team. Or even watch different YouTube channels on kart driving.

There isn't that much consensus between different coaches, which is good—it means you can build an understanding of different styles. But it doesn’t necessarily mean you are developing yourself fully.

3. The Moment You Know You're Done Taking Orders

At some point you should start to feel that you've had enough instruction, and you want to develop your own way of driving. This can go very well so long as your driving style and attitude is a good fit with your coach, or team, or whatever. Things go along very well if you agree perfectly.

But most often that isn’t the case, because every driver really is different. Most coaches are drivers themselves, and drivers don’t like to change their own way of doing things. So when a coach disagrees with you, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are wrong, or even that they are wrong.

But it’s quite likely that neither of you will back down!

If you are in a successful team, the common one-shot end-of-argument statement goes like this:

We got driver x to Formula 1 so wtf do you know?!?!

That’s usually the end of the argument and the driver falls into line—or the end of the relationship, and you realise you need to change how things work.

4. What It Feels Like When Roles Disappear and the Work Begins

What you need to find is someone to work with who isn’t trying to impose their way, and respects that you are able to find your own way and wants to help you do that.

This is when a coach—or whoever it is—can work with you rather than on you. You need to be bloody good at driving to get this, and you also need to be ticking all the boxes a driver needs to hit to excel. That’s how you earn that kind of respect in the first place.

When a driver and a coach or mechanic, or data engineer are working together, there’s no instruction, there’s barely any distinction on who is the driver, who is the 'coach'.

It's not like that. All that’s there is tenths to be found. This could be from observations, cameras, feel from the kart, data. When things are right nobody cares what the source of information is, who it comes from. If it’s valid information that says there is time to be found, that’s all there is. Time to be found—how? Here are the options... Can we do them all in one session? Let’s plan.

5. When the Driver's Hunger Takes Over—and Everyone Follows

That’s the goal of early coaching—to help a driver reach that kind of hunger. That triggers people around to feed the driver and then you get into a zone where personalities disappear. That’s how championships are won, sometimes against the odds.

Takeaways

1. Don’t get stuck being spoon fed. Following instructions feels productive early on, but it won’t get you to the top.

2. Try every style you come across—but don’t get stuck copying. Learning different methods from coaches is useful, but it’s only a phase.

3. There will come a point where you stop agreeing—and that’s good. Conflict usually signals that you’re starting to think for yourself.

4. The real work begins when roles dissolve. The best sessions happen when nobody cares who said what—as long as the lap time drops.

5. Everything clicks when you bring the hunger. Coaches, mechanics, and engineers come alive when the driver leads with intent. That’s when things start to move.

Thanks for reading

Terence