The Gentleman Driver

Motor racing is the ultimate meritocracy.

You do well, you get seen more, you're at the sharp end of the field.

But to do that requires dedication.

All the technology in the world will not help you.

It's about the human interest at the end of it.

Endurance sportscar racing is populated by manufacturers

spending hundreds of millions of euros,

dollars or yen to be here.

You are looking, quite simply,

at the most technologically advanced racing cars in the world.

These cars go around corners as fast or faster than a Formula 1 car.

But, ultimately, the piece of humanity that you plug into all of that technology

does make the difference,

and that's why this is such a great sport.

At Le Mans, in terms of competitive hours,

there's more competitive driving at a higher average speed

than the whole Formula 1 season put together.

And yet, we still have the gentleman driver competing.

Ninety-eight Aston Martin, what a job they've done.

Leading their class,

and Paul Dalla Lana, not one of the pro drivers,

given the honor of bringing it home.

We accept that the pro drivers are of such a great level

that they almost cancel each other out.

So the difference between winning and losing is your gentleman driver,

which I find fascinating.

Dalla Lana in the #98 car,

leading at Le Mans.

This is what people dream about!

Great job, buddy. Great job. Five more perfect laps, OK? Five more.

There's an Aston off.

It's the #98! That's the class leader, Dalla Lana!

Disaster!

Tiny mistake, huge consequences,

and the whole of the #98 team's hopes are smashed.

Got to feel for Paul Dalla Lana.

A victory within his grasp,

and it's all over in the blink of an eye.

We had a two-lap lead and I was tasked with something pretty simple -

bringing the car home.

I think mentally I was there.

Unfortunately, physically I didn't get the job done,

and it's a high price to pay.

Given how competitive this championship is,

we haven't been able to recover.

Gentleman drivers are drivers that are not professional, that are rich.

They have lots of money.

More money than sense.

Mike Conway coming up to pass an Aston Martin.

Oh, no! It's gone wrong!

While there is good talent in the field, there is also questionable talent,

questionable moves that happened during the race.

A little touch on the Toyota. Gets through.

Doesn't get through!

Some of them are better than others from what I can see.

I've read it does cause a little bit of...

consternation with some of the more professional drivers sometimes.

The LMP3 car clatters into the AF Corse Ferrari

and earns a drive-through.

A gentleman driver is somebody that pays for their drive

rather than somebody paying them.

I wish I was rich enough to be one, too, but I'm not.

I believe that gentleman drivers

are part of the living tradition of this whole racing.

They're flamboyant. They're not quite as programmed.

They still do things wrong.

The crowd loves people who screw up and spin the cars, just occasionally.

Thank God we have a few gentleman drivers to do that for us.

Gentleman drivers, for many years,

the lifeblood of motorsport.

As Henry Ford would tell you,

the first motor race was when the second car was built.

And quite often the guys who could afford cars were quite wealthy,

so the original racing drivers, ultimately, were all gentleman drivers.

There were no pros in those days.

That's kind of disappeared now,

so the last great bastion of gentleman drivers

is in sportscar racing,

right up to and including World Championship level.

They are a big part of the sport because they bring money into the sport,

but secondly, they also represent all of us, the fans.

Because if you have the wherewithal, you could buy a baseball team,

you could buy an NFL franchise,

but can you go out and quarterback it on a Sunday?

Of course you can't. It would be ridiculous.

Well, in this form of motor racing, you can do exactly that.

If you dedicate yourself to get to a decent level,

you can race with the giants of the sport.

Now, as the cars have become more sophisticated, quicker,

the role of the gentleman driver has become more difficult.

Rich businessmen just doing it for fun at the weekends, it's hard to do that now.

In fact, it may be impossible.

And if you look down the years at people like Steve McQueen and Paul Newman,

they took time out from their acting jobs to come and race.

Patrick Dempsey now is a full-time driver

and works once in a while as an actor.

He's had to make that change

to make his performance level appropriate to the World Championship.

Definitely racing is an addiction.

You are taking risks,

you're working off hours, you're travelling.

It's not easy. It's not easy.

So if you want to be there and you want to be good at it,

it has to be passion.

I hate the term "gentleman driver."

We're all drivers and we're all passionate about it.

Some guys just started when they were six years old,

and some of us picked it up later in life,

but I've always wanted to be the best at whatever I've tried to do.

If you're not trying to win every time you're out there,

then you probably need to go find something else to do.

As an entrepreneur, and certainly now in the racing world,

you know, it's a pretty demanding audience of one, frankly.

You have to look in the mirror at the end of the day

and say, "Did I get it done or not?"

That's what motivates me, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Racing is what gets me up in the morning.

I think I'm motivated and I push hard,

but when I hear other people speak about me,

they seem to think I push to the point of just insanity.

But I just think it's normal.

For me, it's just what you have to do.

I think to be successful in anything, sport or business,

there has to be a part of your brain that says, "I can do this better."

"Better than him, her, them.

Better than I just did it."

And the quest for perfection

is something that motor racing is pretty much all about.

We were here two years ago, and we did very, very well.

We have all this data from two years ago,

and then my data from this last Friday.

So what you do is you overlay it.

My steering traces,

my brake pressures and my throttle,

turn one, all the way through turn 20.

This data is absolutely imperative.

You're talking a tenth of a second here, a tenth of a second there.

Twenty laps, or 20 corners,

one tenth of a second is two seconds, right?

It's all data-driven - everything. Business is and this is.

I got my profit-and-loss statements in via email last night,

so I'm forecasting taxes.

That's what I was doing in my room.

I thought I was taking time off, but I really was doing analysis

on my accounting.

Now, as of this morning,

I turned that all off, and now I'm on data here.

So my life goes from one to the next.

It just never stops. Never stops.

You've got to understand that gentleman drivers

are an integral part of the sport.

Without the injection of finance that they bring,

some of the teams simply wouldn't be able to exist and go racing.

And so it's being recognized,

because there is a class,

both in GT and in the prototype classes,

where you must have - you are mandated to have -

a non-professional driver in the car.

I think that gives something to the sport.

It doesn't take something away, it adds.

And I think that's what brings in some of the fans,

because they look at that and think, "If only I had the money,

I would be doing exactly the same thing."

None of these corners are really late apexes, Ricky.

What's your braking point?

It's seventy five.

It's deep.

You kind of brake-release, carrying speed into the apex,

looking for the apex.

This extra speed at the rear will help you turn the car.

It's a ritual to do a track walk before each event.

To take the gentleman driver to a track walk is really important,

because we, as pro drivers,

help explain to them how to take each corner.

You know, they look at corners like racing drivers,

but sometimes they also look at corners as businessmen.

He's actually showing me on the computer where to brake.

I don't know if he's right or not. We'll see tomorrow.

Ultimately, the car and the stopwatch doesn't know

whether it's a gentleman driver in that car or someone who's a superstar.

Once the helmet's on, it makes no difference.

And so part of the pro driver's job

when they are teamed up with someone who is a non-pro driver

is to give them help, advice,

and to make them quicker and more consistent.

As a race-car driver sent off down the pit lane,

you might have 20 seconds to get yourself sorted out,

then off with the pit-lane speed limiter

and everything's going to happen at 100% straight away,

because if it's not, you're losing time to your competitors.

Now, the pro drivers do that as a matter of course.

The best amateur drivers build up to that.

In WEC, we're racing with top teams,

so there's a lot to be learned,

and I think it would be an error not to be like a sponge.

It's a team,

and at the end, if one wins, we all win.

I don't remember this being so downhill.

You don't feel it in the car.

Downhill is great for you,