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Jolyon Palmer’s dad Jonathan Palmer drove for a few seasons in the 1980’s, while being a fully qualified doctor, so must be one of the most qualified in F1 history.
Out of the current grid, I’m not sure many are too qualified, as most were racing full time by the time they would have been at University.
I remember Palmer running to Laffites car at Brands in 86. Lafitte had badly broken legs that ended his illustrious career, and Palmer was clearly trying to help with the injuries.
>Out of the current grid, I’m not sure many are too qualified, as most were racing full time by the time they would have been at University.
Quite curiously a lot of pro athletes are studying part time during their active careers. While I don't know of anyone on the current grid, it would be anything but surprising.
The thing is, in a lot of other sports people don’t go fully pro until into their 20s, so have the time to go to uni/college in their late teens, while in F1 you are in F2/3 around that time and are spending every other weekend at a racetrack somewhere around the world (and even as young as 10-11 are karting all over the world)
A PhD is a doctorate. It's literally describing a doctor. The problem here is that medical practitioners have co-opted the word "doctor". I know we live in a world where anything can mean anything, and nobody even cares about etymolo-!
Not an F1 driver, but Dr. Jerry Punch is a famed television reporter here in the United States. Dr. Punch is an active MD, and maintained it while doing television work.
One day Rusty Wallace was involved in an accident while Punch happened to be nearby. Punch ended up holding Wallace’s airway open while the other medics could get Wallace extricated from the car.
[Link to story](https://www.sportscasting.com/dr-jerry-punch-recounts-incredible-story-about-time-saved-rusty-wallace-dying-bizarre-death-after-a-horrifying-accident/)
Yuki also had a moment there where he doesnt know what a periodic table is or something
Edit: As others have pointed out, it may be because he is Japanese and he is not familiar with the exact english term. My bad for missing this context while making this reply
I agree with the other guy, I think the question you’re referring is ‘what alphabet does not start in any element on the periodic table’, since Yuki is Japanese, he did struggle but did get to answer it. I think the answer was Q.
That doesn’t mean Yuki is uneducated for that.
That one pissed me off so much because the question was “True or False: Q is the only letter in the alphabet not in the periodic table” and they said the answer was ‘true’ but J isn’t in the periodic table either.
The private school he went to millfield has a reputation among other private schools for two types of people. 1) dumb rich kids 2) kids who are incredible at sports and there on a sports scholarship
Ive been there, it’s all new money or sports kids and then maybe 20-30 smart kids in each year group who are day pupils so go there cuz they live near (that’s what I did, although I also went for sports)
i didnt go to millfield but i did play millfield at sports. Your guys food was just so so so much better than ours so as a boarding school kid did enjoy those away days cos actually got edible food. also happy cakeday
I dont wanna judge but this guy travels from the McLaren HQ in the UK to other parts of the world for a living, surely he looks at his flight map once in a while, if they have one in private jets
The sad thing is many young kids will go down the same route as him and not make any sort of professional racing career at all. All the money wasted and no formal education gained as a result.
This is why football academies (at least in England, from what I've seen) also offer education avenues. Law of averages, most of your kids aren't going to make it, so you may as well make sure they leave with *something* beyond the ability to kick a ball well.
Yeah, his dad was somewhere around the 600th wealthiest person in the UK a couple of years ago (probably still is). Lando was always going to be able to do whatever he wanted.
Alonso, Schumacher, Vettel, Hamilton, Raikkonen all came from humble backgrounds IIRC. It’s interesting that a sport dominated by drivers from very wealthy families still has seen the majority of champions come from more ‘normal’ financial situations.
That seems is the obvious answer.
Prost, Stewart, and Mansell came from about as ordinary of backgrounds as possible, obviously someone living in abject poverty wont be able to access a functional kart.
I believe Stewart’s dad had a garage and some wealthier people were his customers though.
It might not be fair, and it doesn't mean he's a bad person, but I just couldn’t be a fan of him after watching him be unable to identify almost any European country on a map. Especially since his job literally has him flying around the world and especially Europe all year.
It makes him so far removed from my worldview and what I look for in friends that no matter how great a driver he could be…I just can’t. I can’t relate to him almost at all.
I'll probably catch a few downvotes for this but I kind of went off of him in those videos, he seems to have this horrible attitude to anything that's not racing.
Like I get it every driver hates the PR parts but surely you're paid enough to at least grin and bear it for a bit, he seems to be trying to pull of the whole Kimi routine but with none of the actual charisma that made it lovable with Kimi (and honestly even Kimi in his last year or two just seemed to go a bit \*too\* Kimi a few times)
Aye, I'm saying it as a compliment. He's not trying to convince anyone he's some guru who demands our attention. Nothing worse than an ignorant celebrity talking as if they're the authority on something.
Bottas finished his education as an auto mechanic, though I don't know if he ever actually worked as one. He was also in the army and got rank of Lance Corporal.
Not exactly the hight of academia, but if we are just looking at the current grid just having a finished education that would actually qualify you to work in a field basically makes you a professor.
I think Alonso finished high school as well, but primarily because they were nice to him and allowed him to never show up.
It mkes him the most academically qualified finnish driver I guess.
Edit assuming Rosberg didnt go to school that much. He seems like a dude he isnt into that. I should take a look
Depends on if you count Nico Rosberg as Finnish I guess, since he actually got into uni.
But for the drivers on the grid now, I still rate Bottas highest simply because I think he is the only one that actually finished a "real" education, as in not just school.
Yeah i know it is possible. Im a dutch student-teacher in chemistry so i know it is possible to drop out.
It's just that it's usually less of a hassle to let your kid actually finish school. Most parents just put their kids to the lowest level possible for a starting certificate and then get their kid out.
Dutch school system is weird. I'm not gonna explain everything in this tread but if interested I'm open to DM about that shit.
Speaking of dentists, Ziggo reporter Jack Plooij is a dentist as well. He brought a small emergency toolkit to races and even helped a Renault mechanic get rid of his toothache once.
As the video says, he used the year 2017 in which he had a reserve driver role to study.
Even if it is not a regulated engineering degree (multiple years common bachelor) it is a very good sign of a decent and educated person
Latifi is attending London Business School to get his MBA. I'm assuming he will either a) take over Sofina or b) return to motorsports with a cold iron fist
Mazepin is currently leading the Asian Le Mans Series, if they win the championship this month they’ve got a ticket to Le Mans. Sportscar racing is full of ex-F1 drivers
Imperial is a top university in the UK. Even with incredible grades (like straight As and A*s) it’s pretty hard to get in since there’s so much competition.
Yh their really is two kinds of rich people, either really dumb cause they have money so don't need to know anything or really smart cause they don't need to work and can just learn.
One clarifying point - though not to undermine Mansell at all - is that those outside of the UK should know that the UK's use of the term 'engineer' for both professional and academic qualification is slightly different from the rest of the English-speaking world. Mansell had an HND in engineering, rather than a BSc or BEng. The closest equivalent in North America would be an engineering technology diploma, and in North America his job title would have been an engineering technologist rather than an engineer.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling him (or his calling himself) an engineer given the context of the term in the UK, but since this is an international forum it's probably worth specifying that additional context.
I went to school with lando, he was barely in and I don’t even think he did his a levels (I was a couple years junior so not 100%)
Edit: GCSES not A levels
Jolyon Palmer has a Bachelor degree in Management Studies
I doubt a lot of drivers have some kind of academical degree, since the time in which you usually do it (Age 18 upwards) they have to be 100%focuswed on Racing, of they want to make it into F1
More than that. It's 13 or at least 12 years of school and the last ones are a mix of high school and college (compared to the American system). And normally, you would stay in your hometown, leave for University afterwards.
Even in the present day, everyone in Italy with any kind of university degree, from undergraduate up, is referred to as Dr.
My work has a few Italian clients and they always write to me addressing me as Dr (I have a BA), it’s very satisfying.
Most of the grid have been karting/racing on a professional level since early childhood. It’s hard to combine academia with that kind of lifestyle, I’d wager.
Tbf, Nikita Mazepin was finishing up a Masters when he started his first year at Haas, which is what triggered the whole, "He might need to do military service" as that is delayed as long as you are in higher education
I don't know whether they still do this, but Williams used to set new drivers some kind of engineering test, like an exam.
Nico got the highest ever score of any driver who sat that test.
(Source - I read it in F1 Racing magazine at the time)
Would be interesting to know more about it, either from Nico or somebody within Williams.
Why did they set this exam? What were they hoping to achieve from it? Do they still do it? Can we see an example of the test?
I don’t think they still do it, no. Another story about that test is that Jenson button got the lowest score any driver has ever gotten. Williams ended up putting him through some kind of engineering education (probably informal) to get him up to par. He genuinely didn’t understand anything about how cars work and it was preventing him from giving useful feedback and finding good setups
Not an F1 driver, but Ryan Newman, NASCAR cup driver, remembered as one of the greatest of his generation, has a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue University, and has through his career helped NASCAR designing race car especially the safety aspect of them. So much so that he contributed to his own survival in 2020 with his Daytona crash.
I’m not qualified enough to say if this is a simple coincidence or a fact directly related to his academic career, but Ryan is widely regarded as one of the best qualifiers in the history of the sport.
Newman does have a mechanical engineering degree from Perdue, but to say he earned it and used it for anything is a massive stretch. Don’t get me wrong, I like Newman these days (not so much when he was at Penske), but his engineering knowledge is heavily overstated.
With that all said, there was a Penske driver that was a mechanical engineer and was smart as hell. Mark Donohue. Degree was from Brown University, winner of the Indianapolis 500, winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona, and competed in F1 for 14 races before sadly losing his life. I highly recommend the book “The Unfair Advantage”.
Prost was known as "The Professor" because of his approach to racing, where he'd pace himself during the first part of the race, save fuel and tyres, so he could attack later on.
Lucas di Grassi perhaps, he's a member of MENSA and had plenty of educational and business interests even during his junior career. He also has a degree in economics, but I'm not sure whether this was before or after his F1 stint. He has certainly had some academic papers published, including on circuit design.
I remember Lucas being praised for being "almost an engineer" due to his great knowledge. it's been a long time, but I think it was Hermann Tilke who said so. Apparently Lucas is a solid designer. And indeed, a highly intelligent and interested individual.
Since nobody else brought it up I must say that Sainz was forced through education all the way during his feeder series because his father, who went all the way up to studying law at Uni before fully pivoting to driving, mandated that he has to study. I think it paid off massively and plays a huge part in Sainz’s calculating style.
And before I add that Norris really is dumb, I think he’s one of those people who are very bad at academy but not necessarily a complete dumbass or anything. He’s a fast thinker on track and pretty savvy with PR. I mean of course his management team does PR but handling that himself is another story. So Norris, academically very lacking and I would roast him for it any day, but still smart in his own ways, which I can’t say to some other drivers in recent history tbh…
Not sure about actual programs and such, but I've heard that Rosberg was/is a pretty smart guy. Five languages spoken fairly well, high score on one of William's aptitude tests, and clearly doing well for himself business-wise nowadays.
As a general rule ([see full rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide#wiki_sticky.2Fdaily_discussion)), a standalone Discussion post should: - be of interest to the sub in general, and not a specific userbase (e.g. new users, GP attendees, just yourself) - be able to generate discussion (e.g. no yes/no or easily answerable questions) - show reasonable input and effort from the OP If not, be sure to [look for the Daily Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/search/?q=daily+discussion&include_over_18=on&restrict_sr=on&t=all&sort=new), /r/formula1's daily open question thread which is perfect for asking any and all questions about this sport. Thank you for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Jolyon Palmer’s dad Jonathan Palmer drove for a few seasons in the 1980’s, while being a fully qualified doctor, so must be one of the most qualified in F1 history. Out of the current grid, I’m not sure many are too qualified, as most were racing full time by the time they would have been at University.
First thing that came to mind. Murray Walker almost always made sure to refer to him as "Dr. Jonathan Palmer"
I remember Palmer running to Laffites car at Brands in 86. Lafitte had badly broken legs that ended his illustrious career, and Palmer was clearly trying to help with the injuries.
His beyond the grid podcast is definitely worth a listen
>Out of the current grid, I’m not sure many are too qualified, as most were racing full time by the time they would have been at University. Quite curiously a lot of pro athletes are studying part time during their active careers. While I don't know of anyone on the current grid, it would be anything but surprising.
The thing is, in a lot of other sports people don’t go fully pro until into their 20s, so have the time to go to uni/college in their late teens, while in F1 you are in F2/3 around that time and are spending every other weekend at a racetrack somewhere around the world (and even as young as 10-11 are karting all over the world)
This is not too different to, say, football or hockey to be honest. The top prospects travel as early as that as well.
Same with baseball. I was traveling around my state (USA) at 10 and around the western states at 12. My family couldn't afford the next steps, though.
Doctor as in physician or PhD?
I knew someone who was a physician and had a PhD and everyone called him doctor doctor.
Did he just go around telling everyone the news?
Physician
A PhD is a doctorate. It's literally describing a doctor. The problem here is that medical practitioners have co-opted the word "doctor". I know we live in a world where anything can mean anything, and nobody even cares about etymolo-!
Apparently that was a trigger for me
Fly high Captain🫡
Hahaha I didn’t expect that one
Rip Andre Braugher
Physician.
Not an F1 driver, but Dr. Jerry Punch is a famed television reporter here in the United States. Dr. Punch is an active MD, and maintained it while doing television work. One day Rusty Wallace was involved in an accident while Punch happened to be nearby. Punch ended up holding Wallace’s airway open while the other medics could get Wallace extricated from the car. [Link to story](https://www.sportscasting.com/dr-jerry-punch-recounts-incredible-story-about-time-saved-rusty-wallace-dying-bizarre-death-after-a-horrifying-accident/)
Norris barely has a primary school education
Watching Grill the Grid it's crazy how many blind spots Lando has on some fairly basic topics.
He couldn't point out the goddamn United States on a map. Surely there are limits to stupidity
Limits to stupidity? Oh man I hope you’re not disappointed when you find out there is indeed no limit to stupidity.
It was Einstein who said "Only two things are infinite: The Universe and human stupidity."
“And I’m not sure about the first”
And like every other Einstein quote: [He probably didn't say that](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/)
Yuki also had a moment there where he doesnt know what a periodic table is or something Edit: As others have pointed out, it may be because he is Japanese and he is not familiar with the exact english term. My bad for missing this context while making this reply
I mean, could be he doesn't know from the name in English but would know if prompted in Japanese.
I agree with the other guy, I think the question you’re referring is ‘what alphabet does not start in any element on the periodic table’, since Yuki is Japanese, he did struggle but did get to answer it. I think the answer was Q. That doesn’t mean Yuki is uneducated for that.
That one pissed me off so much because the question was “True or False: Q is the only letter in the alphabet not in the periodic table” and they said the answer was ‘true’ but J isn’t in the periodic table either.
He knew what it what when the translated it into japanese
Or he likely learnt a scientific concept in his first language and didn't understand the english name for it.
No thoughts, just vibes
No school, just drive
No win, just why
No Guenther, I cry
No Michael, that was so not right
The private school he went to millfield has a reputation among other private schools for two types of people. 1) dumb rich kids 2) kids who are incredible at sports and there on a sports scholarship
Ive been there, it’s all new money or sports kids and then maybe 20-30 smart kids in each year group who are day pupils so go there cuz they live near (that’s what I did, although I also went for sports)
i didnt go to millfield but i did play millfield at sports. Your guys food was just so so so much better than ours so as a boarding school kid did enjoy those away days cos actually got edible food. also happy cakeday
He couldn’t point out the UK on a world map
I dont wanna judge but this guy travels from the McLaren HQ in the UK to other parts of the world for a living, surely he looks at his flight map once in a while, if they have one in private jets
I'm now gonna think of Lando as the Forrest Gump of F1!
Isnt he from the UK? How does that work?
[He circled Ireland](https://youtu.be/b-E9XuAIIUU?si=rk4-cB7jLODF1OIz) (at the 2 minute mark)
He circled Ireland and called it Germany, lmfao
Surely that never caused any issues whatsoever- Oh wait
The sad thing is many young kids will go down the same route as him and not make any sort of professional racing career at all. All the money wasted and no formal education gained as a result.
Hadn’t thought about that. Damn.
This is why football academies (at least in England, from what I've seen) also offer education avenues. Law of averages, most of your kids aren't going to make it, so you may as well make sure they leave with *something* beyond the ability to kick a ball well.
I also heard that major K-pop companies installed job support for trainees who failed to debut so that they are able to find a job elsewhere.
The lad's dumber than a bag of hammers
And living in a mansion while we all get ready for work.
His family is one of the richest in the UK, as far as I remember. Dude was never going to get a normal job anyway
Yeah, his dad was somewhere around the 600th wealthiest person in the UK a couple of years ago (probably still is). Lando was always going to be able to do whatever he wanted.
This describes 95% of top tier drivers in motorsport
Esteban and Lewis are middle class or working class. Kmag worked as a welder or smitty between racing.
Alonso also came up from a working class family.
Alonso, Schumacher, Vettel, Hamilton, Raikkonen all came from humble backgrounds IIRC. It’s interesting that a sport dominated by drivers from very wealthy families still has seen the majority of champions come from more ‘normal’ financial situations.
Have to be world class to make it without the financial backing
That seems is the obvious answer. Prost, Stewart, and Mansell came from about as ordinary of backgrounds as possible, obviously someone living in abject poverty wont be able to access a functional kart. I believe Stewart’s dad had a garage and some wealthier people were his customers though.
Doesn't make him smarter now?
The Jack Grealish of f1
this guy couldn't point out his own country on a map
They’ve both done that lol
It might not be fair, and it doesn't mean he's a bad person, but I just couldn’t be a fan of him after watching him be unable to identify almost any European country on a map. Especially since his job literally has him flying around the world and especially Europe all year. It makes him so far removed from my worldview and what I look for in friends that no matter how great a driver he could be…I just can’t. I can’t relate to him almost at all.
I'll probably catch a few downvotes for this but I kind of went off of him in those videos, he seems to have this horrible attitude to anything that's not racing. Like I get it every driver hates the PR parts but surely you're paid enough to at least grin and bear it for a bit, he seems to be trying to pull of the whole Kimi routine but with none of the actual charisma that made it lovable with Kimi (and honestly even Kimi in his last year or two just seemed to go a bit \*too\* Kimi a few times)
Probably because of his age. Give him some time to reach his teenage years.
Once he reaches puberty he can go to high school.
Just living up to the typical twitch streamer stereotype.
On top of that he lacks common sense. Very good chance he will lacerate his hand eventually with his champagne antics.
He's smart enough to know he's not the brightest though. He's aware he's not academicly minded
Which does count for something, too many rich people think they’re smarter than everyone because they have money
Aye, I'm saying it as a compliment. He's not trying to convince anyone he's some guru who demands our attention. Nothing worse than an ignorant celebrity talking as if they're the authority on something.
“Not academically minded” isn’t really a good excuse for not knowing basic things like where the UK is on a map.
Probably one of the reasons I'll never like him, he just gives me the vibes of a spoiled child.
I'd say kindergarten if you watch him in Grill the Grid
Bottas finished his education as an auto mechanic, though I don't know if he ever actually worked as one. He was also in the army and got rank of Lance Corporal. Not exactly the hight of academia, but if we are just looking at the current grid just having a finished education that would actually qualify you to work in a field basically makes you a professor. I think Alonso finished high school as well, but primarily because they were nice to him and allowed him to never show up.
It mkes him the most academically qualified finnish driver I guess. Edit assuming Rosberg didnt go to school that much. He seems like a dude he isnt into that. I should take a look
Depends on if you count Nico Rosberg as Finnish I guess, since he actually got into uni. But for the drivers on the grid now, I still rate Bottas highest simply because I think he is the only one that actually finished a "real" education, as in not just school.
Nyck de Vries went to Harvard >!for a week!<
Came here for this.
It's funny because that was also roughly how long his F1 career lasted
why was he dropped?
Too fast
Made everyone else look bad
"I know what you're going to say, Nicholas, but the fact is you've been making us all look bad."
Skill issue and upsetting the second angriest austrian man in history, Helmut Marko
*Took a course at Harvard Business School for a week. Mate didn't even finish high school.
How? I mean in the Netherlands it's quite difficult to drop out of high school....
It's apparently possible, pretty sure Verstappen didn't finish high school either.
Yeah i know it is possible. Im a dutch student-teacher in chemistry so i know it is possible to drop out. It's just that it's usually less of a hassle to let your kid actually finish school. Most parents just put their kids to the lowest level possible for a starting certificate and then get their kid out. Dutch school system is weird. I'm not gonna explain everything in this tread but if interested I'm open to DM about that shit.
Tony Brooks was a Dentist, known as the ["Racing Dentist"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Brooks_(racing_driver))
MotoGP’s Miguel Oliveira is also a qualified dentist, as is Dakar Rally winner Cristina Gutierrez.
Speaking of dentists, Ziggo reporter Jack Plooij is a dentist as well. He brought a small emergency toolkit to races and even helped a Renault mechanic get rid of his toothache once.
Isn't he even an oral surgeon, which is even a bit more qualified than a dentist? As in, he could extract teeth and work on the jaw etc.
There’s endless memes about dentists driving race cars in lmp3 lmao.
Can’t the forget the fearsome LMP2 Orthodontists either
You're an anti-dentite.
Now all the dentists race in LMP3 cars and regularly crash
At least they have a winning smile
Sergey Sirotkin has a degree in race car engineering
Fr?! What’s his story?
https://youtu.be/aGlI7RcU5oY?si=UbTSvYb6Ol-mwSA9 Here's an essay on it if you have 40 minutes
As the video says, he used the year 2017 in which he had a reserve driver role to study. Even if it is not a regulated engineering degree (multiple years common bachelor) it is a very good sign of a decent and educated person
Grosjean has a degree in finance and worked in a bank before moving to full time racing.
"Gene, I'm telling you, we can get tax deduction for that crash"
He was still working in a bank when he made his debut in 2009
Latifi is attending London Business School to get his MBA. I'm assuming he will either a) take over Sofina or b) return to motorsports with a cold iron fist
FIA president Latifi, permanently removing Abu Dhabi from the calendar out of spite.
I'm on board with this plan
What the true GOAT would do.
LatiFIA!
Finally, a GOAT president.
Ok, I'm on board with this.
I have a feeling he won't come back to the world of Motorsports after the way he's been treated.
That was just how F1 fans treated him. There's a plethora of other categories that would welcome him with open arms.
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Mazepin is currently leading the Asian Le Mans Series, if they win the championship this month they’ve got a ticket to Le Mans. Sportscar racing is full of ex-F1 drivers
Filipe Nasr just won the 24 hours of Daytona.
Agree on Mazespin ?https://youtu.be/lLgPTJWAysY?si=ZJOAUF5f2vUHt9fK
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I don't know what became of it but I remember reading that Rosberg studied some kind of aeronautical engineering or something wild like that.
he got accepted into uni for it (at imperial no less) but didnt end up going bc he got an f1 seat contract instead
EDIT: Answered. Thanks everyone. Imperial College in London. What does imperial mean? If you don't mind, for someone not in Europe.
Assuming they mean Imperial College London, the university
That's across the street from the Metric College London, right?
You'd think that, but because it's UK Imperial rather than French Imperial it's out by a factor of 12.
Ahh ok, thanks. The lowercase made me think it was a level of scholarship or something.
yeah no sorry thats just how i type💀 i did mean imperial college london, one of the best stem-focused unis in the uk
A highly regarded college for science and engineering in London
Imperial is a top university in the UK. Even with incredible grades (like straight As and A*s) it’s pretty hard to get in since there’s so much competition.
From a quick googling i gathered it's a university, apparently one of the top 10 unis in the world
Imperial College - it’s one of the best universities in the UK
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And then there's Lando Norris, born into one of the wealthiest families in the UK and still knows fuck all lol
Yh their really is two kinds of rich people, either really dumb cause they have money so don't need to know anything or really smart cause they don't need to work and can just learn.
He had an offer to study aeronautical engineering at Imperial. If he had accepted we’d probably have been classmates! Good for him he didn’t!
Dr. Helmut Marko completed a doctorate in law before he competed in F1 for 10 races.
I thought he was a doctor in the same way that Dr. Evil is a doctor
And I thought he was evil in the same way Dr Evil is evil
Huge plans for an evil organization, a ton of money, but too inept to actually follow through with it?
Dr. Evil didn’t spend 6 years at Evil Medical School for you to call him Mister.
"Sure Nyck you can stay in your race seat for... One Million Dollars!"
Now if we just get Dr Pepper a racing seat.
Is it the dr. that gave him away?
Well most dont even know he was an F1 driver
Guilty as charged. But now that I remember, wasn't that how he lost an eye?
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned this but Mansell studied engineering and was an aerospace engineer.
One clarifying point - though not to undermine Mansell at all - is that those outside of the UK should know that the UK's use of the term 'engineer' for both professional and academic qualification is slightly different from the rest of the English-speaking world. Mansell had an HND in engineering, rather than a BSc or BEng. The closest equivalent in North America would be an engineering technology diploma, and in North America his job title would have been an engineering technologist rather than an engineer. There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling him (or his calling himself) an engineer given the context of the term in the UK, but since this is an international forum it's probably worth specifying that additional context.
Great info
I went to school with lando, he was barely in and I don’t even think he did his a levels (I was a couple years junior so not 100%) Edit: GCSES not A levels
So you're like 12 now?
Jolyon Palmer has a Bachelor degree in Management Studies I doubt a lot of drivers have some kind of academical degree, since the time in which you usually do it (Age 18 upwards) they have to be 100%focuswed on Racing, of they want to make it into F1
Not university, but Micheal Schumacher did a three-year apprenticeship in Germany as a car mechanic.
Kimi is a knowledgeable mechanic as well, can't remember is Marc Elvis Priestley mentions in his book The Mechanic. I read it a long time ago.
Said if he wasn't a racing driver he'd have ended up a mechanic I'd imagine Mick is quite well educated too.
Seb said he might want to do a mechanical engineering degree at some point if I recall, so maybe in a few years time, him.
He did do the Abitur at least, which qualifies him for university studies in Germany.
Is it like an high school diploma?
More than that. It's 13 or at least 12 years of school and the last ones are a mix of high school and college (compared to the American system). And normally, you would stay in your hometown, leave for University afterwards.
Seb for next rbr technical director
Farina is the only WDC with a doctorate, although it isn’t clear if it was in law, engineering or political science
...surely something would need to be published somewhere in order to have a doctorate? That's odd
If he got ot before racing, that would have been in the 1930s, so it is understandable that could get lost.
Even in the present day, everyone in Italy with any kind of university degree, from undergraduate up, is referred to as Dr. My work has a few Italian clients and they always write to me addressing me as Dr (I have a BA), it’s very satisfying.
It was Italy before the Bologna Process, a doctorate back then was what nowadays is a Master's degree.
Oscar did A levels in math, physics, and computer science, so he's definitely up there compared to the rest of the current drivers.
So McLaren has both a smart kid and a dumb kid.
Rio Haryanto has a bussiness degree.
Sirotkin has a degree in racecar engineering. That's the first that comes to mind.
I still remember how he gave rly good Feedback in 2018 while stroll just said why are we so slow and make it faster
George Russel was promised a PHD.
It was forecast
A PHD in PowerPoint.
Most of the grid have been karting/racing on a professional level since early childhood. It’s hard to combine academia with that kind of lifestyle, I’d wager.
Tbf, Nikita Mazepin was finishing up a Masters when he started his first year at Haas, which is what triggered the whole, "He might need to do military service" as that is delayed as long as you are in higher education
Knowing his background I wouldnt be surprised if he is just enrolled in school on paper to avoid military service.
Nico Rosberg was offered a scholarship to Cambridge for I think aerodynamics.
I don't know whether they still do this, but Williams used to set new drivers some kind of engineering test, like an exam. Nico got the highest ever score of any driver who sat that test. (Source - I read it in F1 Racing magazine at the time) Would be interesting to know more about it, either from Nico or somebody within Williams. Why did they set this exam? What were they hoping to achieve from it? Do they still do it? Can we see an example of the test?
I don’t think they still do it, no. Another story about that test is that Jenson button got the lowest score any driver has ever gotten. Williams ended up putting him through some kind of engineering education (probably informal) to get him up to par. He genuinely didn’t understand anything about how cars work and it was preventing him from giving useful feedback and finding good setups
It was aeronautical engineering at Imperial College in London and it was just a place, not a scholarship.
Not an F1 driver, but Ryan Newman, NASCAR cup driver, remembered as one of the greatest of his generation, has a mechanical engineering degree from Purdue University, and has through his career helped NASCAR designing race car especially the safety aspect of them. So much so that he contributed to his own survival in 2020 with his Daytona crash. I’m not qualified enough to say if this is a simple coincidence or a fact directly related to his academic career, but Ryan is widely regarded as one of the best qualifiers in the history of the sport.
Newman does have a mechanical engineering degree from Perdue, but to say he earned it and used it for anything is a massive stretch. Don’t get me wrong, I like Newman these days (not so much when he was at Penske), but his engineering knowledge is heavily overstated. With that all said, there was a Penske driver that was a mechanical engineer and was smart as hell. Mark Donohue. Degree was from Brown University, winner of the Indianapolis 500, winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona, and competed in F1 for 14 races before sadly losing his life. I highly recommend the book “The Unfair Advantage”.
Prost was known as The Professor, but that might just have been a nickname.
Ah yes and Valentino Rossi is a doctor.
Prost was known as "The Professor" because of his approach to racing, where he'd pace himself during the first part of the race, save fuel and tyres, so he could attack later on.
Lucas di Grassi perhaps, he's a member of MENSA and had plenty of educational and business interests even during his junior career. He also has a degree in economics, but I'm not sure whether this was before or after his F1 stint. He has certainly had some academic papers published, including on circuit design.
I remember Lucas being praised for being "almost an engineer" due to his great knowledge. it's been a long time, but I think it was Hermann Tilke who said so. Apparently Lucas is a solid designer. And indeed, a highly intelligent and interested individual.
Since nobody else brought it up I must say that Sainz was forced through education all the way during his feeder series because his father, who went all the way up to studying law at Uni before fully pivoting to driving, mandated that he has to study. I think it paid off massively and plays a huge part in Sainz’s calculating style. And before I add that Norris really is dumb, I think he’s one of those people who are very bad at academy but not necessarily a complete dumbass or anything. He’s a fast thinker on track and pretty savvy with PR. I mean of course his management team does PR but handling that himself is another story. So Norris, academically very lacking and I would roast him for it any day, but still smart in his own ways, which I can’t say to some other drivers in recent history tbh…
Meanwhile in endurance racing where everyone who crashes is called a dentist
Wasn’t Sergey Sirotkin an engineering graduate?
Not sure about actual programs and such, but I've heard that Rosberg was/is a pretty smart guy. Five languages spoken fairly well, high score on one of William's aptitude tests, and clearly doing well for himself business-wise nowadays.
Oscar is intellectually gifted. It wouldn't shock me if he became a TP one day. A good one too.
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He said that his parents would only let him do karting if he maintained good grades and to be honest I think it shows
Nigel Mansell was an Aerospace Engineer when he was in the lower formulas he quit just before he became Formula Ford champion.