Revealed Alonso’s inspiring advice to his young promises

Fernando Alonso has his own agency that represents the young talents of tomorrow, called A14 Management. In it, he supervises and helps the project of the races of drivers such as the 17-year-old Spanish Pepe Martí, a Formula 3 driver, or the Bulgarian F3 talent Nikola Tsolov and the leader of the same event , the 18-year-old. Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto. The reduced list of jewelers is joined by Maximilian Günther, Clément Novalak, Andrés Cárdenas and Han Cenyu. Despite his busy schedule, with many hours of daily preparation for his ambitious project with Aston Martin in Formula 1, Fernando Alonso strives to help his students improve their driving and performance at their best in their careers throughout the year with combined simulator sessions led by Ferdinand himself.

Pepe Martí himself told MD. In the case of the 3 pilots he had in the Formula 3 World Championship, Pepe Martí, Bortoleto and Tsolov, the Spanish pilot conduct simulator sessions before each event through a customized professional program from A14 Management with each of his talents installed in his home simulator. From afar, Fernando Alonso taught them all the details he could, taking advantage of his vast experience at all the circuits to shorten the driver’s learning process on the track every weekend. It goes as far as to indicate which pianos and vertices should be touched and when to do it, or even, as Pepe Martí revealed, shows some things that can be seen from the track to take them as a braking reference.

“Once we went to his Circuit Museum in Oviedo to go karting to prepare for this season. Obviously, it is very difficult to balance the calendar of all the agency’s pilots. Fernando is a very important figure for me. We do simulator sessions before every race, because the latter has knowledge from many years of experience runs on every circuit, so the accuracy of his explanation of everything in every corner is incredible”, Pepe Martí revealed to MD.

“For example: curbs he uses, curbs that cause vibration in the tire, things that need to be changed in the race versus qualifying to manage the tire or because it’s more efficient… these are the things for us , as newbies, it’s very hard to find on weekends. These are very important things to try to get the most out of the car.”, added the young talent from Barcelona.

“We have an A14 server, made for us, which are all the pilots of A14 Management. It’s a simulator that I installed on my computer at home, which has a closed server for us. And every pilot is connecting to it using his home simulator. On that ‘server’ we have F4, F3 and F1 cars and we use the F3 car. We share the screen with everyone who has the ‘Discord’ application and we are all on the track together. What we do is talk about things. For example, we all do a lap together and the funny thing is that because three drivers are in the same category and we have already spent several laps in the simulator, in 5 laps we are all in tenth place. ”, the Catalan revealed.

“And everything we’re trying to do is to tune a lot, things where you get half a tenth. But half-tenths, plus half-tenths and another half-tenth is half-tenths. They talk about things that have a big impact in real life and Fernando Alonso has that experience and that natural talent that he tries to convey to you and that is a big help”, he added.

THIS IS HOW ALONSO’S SIMULATOR SESSIONS ARE WITH HIS STUDENTS

“I really appreciated your participation because of the short time you had. Last time he joined for half an hour because he had a meeting afterwards and wanted to come back when it was over. I really appreciate that you want to dedicate those moments to our growing pilots. In those sessions, when Fernando goes out on the track, he shares the screen and we all look at him”, Martí explained to this newspaper.

The first thing Alonso does is make a slow turn in the car to reveal all the secrets of the circuit and share his tricks. “First, he was walking around, like a ‘track walk’ but from a car. In that slow lap he describes the braking points, the turning points, the vertices he touched, the ones he didn’t… reference points… For example: in the first braking in Monaco it was a pole from an antenna. These are the things you see over time. These are things that you see over time, that are very hard to see and you end up repeating. And all these things, instead of doing the learning process and looking at the reference and looking for it, going directly and having an idea where you are more or less braking is something very important. And his knowledge of that aspect is very important in the first laps of a weekend to be productive and not lose time”, explained Pepe.

Following this, Alonso did a few laps at the top to demonstrate what he explained above. “Later, Fernando took turns in drag to give us an idea of ​​what he does in real life. The simulator started and was not 100% accurate. You can get an idea of ​​what it says and how to apply it, but until you see it yourself on the track, it’s very difficult.

And then, it was the turn of the young pilots. “And when he finishes his laps, we go out on the track and try to apply what he said to see if we can copy it the first time, the second time or the third time. Alonso follows our laps and refines us and said important things to change. It’s fun because we all make mistakes”, he concluded about these maximum learning sessions with Fernando.

CHANGES TO SETTINGS AND ADAPTATIONS

But not only that. These sessions are also used by Fernando Alonso so that his sons can improve their adaptation to different settings, one of the many strong points that make a difference for Fernando, because he is one to the riders who adapt the fastest to any condition and setting. .

“Other tips? I think it’s quite the way of driving. In the end, you can extract different speeds of cars in different ways. or with different aspects such as braking, corner entry or exit. Since I was little, I always tend to brake later with new tires, and gradually I understand that sometimes you have more advantage by releasing the brake earlier, keeping the same point of braking and trying to pick up that speed. in curve entry. They are those little things that cost a lot to refine, but when you get them, they give you a big profit”, said Pepe.

YOUR BEST ADVICE

“Any advice? This is no longer advice, but an idea that he is trying to instill in all of us and I am trying to apply. It’s the idea of ​​always trying to get the most out of the car”, says Martí.

“For example, even if the car is understeering and you have difficulty turning, or vice versa, if the car is oversteering and the ‘ass’ of the car is alive, no matter what happens, you must always try to get the most out of the car you are driving. have. You need to know how to identify the car’s strong points and its weak points and know how to maximize the strong points and minimize the weak points. These are the things he is trying to make us understand. For example, sometimes we change things in the set-up to change exactly the balance of the car and cause us to adapt quickly”, he commented.

That’s something that his partner Nikola Tsolovo already recognized in this newspaper a year ago: “Obviously, everyone has their riding style that they have to try to develop, but there are many things that Fernando told me to improve. The most important thing he told me was the need to make the most of everything you have and always give 110%. Even if the car is not the best on the grid, you have to do better than the position you have to occupy. If the car has the potential to finish 6th, you have to finish 5th and not 7th, you know? You have to do better than expected, always. You have to give everything you have”, the Bulgarian pilot revealed to MD.

Does Alonso’s advice make sense? This is exactly what Fernando has done in F1 since its inception, not only in winning cars, but in 2023 to achieve 5 podiums in 6 races, or in recent years, consistently achieving great performances in the score with cars that they will be. 12th.

“Alonso told me: “If a car has the potential to be there, you have to be higher than that.”. And he also told me: “You not only have to work on the track, but also,” Tsolov added on that occasion.

TIPS FOR THE MONACO RACE

Fernando Alonso also defines what pilots must do in races. An example of this he told Pepe Martí in his first time in Monaco last weekend, where the Catalan debuted with victory in Saturday’s Formula 3 race without having set foot on a dry track before. , because the training sessions were wet.

“For Monaco, for example, he told us that in qualifying it was important to fight the walls, to the last finger, but gradually and always without losing the tone. We have 45 minutes of practice before qualifying, so I have to try to go ‘crescendo’ until I get as close as possible to the wall. He told us to gradually approach the limit and on the last lap try to set a good time. And he told me that in the race… no one can overtake or do anything crazy, that in the end it is trying to be aggressive in the first lap and gain a position, and from there, and see the checkered flag”, explained Martí.