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F1 drivers need coaching too, says Stewart

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-02 14:30

LONDON - Formula One teams should learn from other sports' use of coaches to help drivers make the most of their skills, triple world champion Jackie Stewart said on Tuesday.

"One of the weaknesses that we've got in our sport, in my opinion, is the lack of training...this is the only sport that I can think of that doesn't have coaching," the Briton told reporters.

"For sure it makes a difference...you have coaches in football, rugby, cricket, golf. Tiger Woods wouldn't walk 10 metres without his coach," he said at a breakfast briefing for Williams sponsor RBS.

"Yet racing drivers don't need any help at all.

"And when you suggest that they might benefit from it, there is a resistance. I don't understand that," added the Scot.

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton is Britain's most promising Formula One title contender since Damon Hill won the title with Williams in 1996.

However the 23-year-old has failed to score points in his last two races after errors in Canada and France cost him the championship lead.

Hamilton, the first black F1 driver who missed out on becoming the youngest world champion by a single point last year, spends considerable time in his team simulator while also working out intensively.

However, the Briton told the Daily Mail newspaper on Monday that he saw little reason to seek advice from former grand prix drivers.

"I'm in a unique position," said Hamilton. "Nobody has felt exactly the same things as I've felt. The only person I really take advice from is my Dad.

"Whenever I speak to Damon or Jackie I do take what they say on board, but I'm not going to go searching them out and ask how I can be world champion. I want to do it on my own. I got to where I am on my own, with my family."

CLEAR COMMUNICATION

Stewart said there was nothing wrong in tapping the expertise of others, recalling how in the early days of his career he had bombarded the late Argentine world champion Juan Manuel Fangio with questions.

He said that the events of Montreal, where Hamilton drove into the back of world champion Kimi Raikkonen's stationary Ferrari in the pit lane and was hit in turn by Williams's Nico Rosberg, showed the need for clear communication.

"That happened because there was so much distraction going on, so much interference going on in their young heads, that they didn't hear the message; "The pit lane's closed, the red light is on," he said.

"They came into the pits and needed to be talked down mentally," he added.

"That's where the coach comes in, because the man who talks to him (the driver) should be the man who specialises in good, clear communication."

Stewart said drivers like Hamilton, with only 25 grands prix under his belt, needed to be kept calm and to think strategically.

"The discipline of not making mistakes is what wins. To finish first, first you must finish," he said.

"My record was 99 starts and 27 wins, and it wasn't that I was necessarily that fast. It was just that I thought fairly carefully about how you had to go quickly but you couldn't go over the top.

"The drivers shouldn't go over the top, even now. The over-the-top thing has probably taken the world championship lead away from Lewis Hamilton right now."