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Jean-Pierre Jabouille was the last true engineer/driver. He designed the ELF 2J with which he won the 76 Formula Two title, and his work on the RS01 & RS10 was a major contribution to Renault’s first turbo win in 1979.
https://imgur.com/a/239QADi
It was the last space frame chassis to win a major championship, 14 years after Chapman had introduced the monocoque design.
That alone speaks volumes of Jabouille’s engineering ability.
Another cool point…. the car was sponsored by Fromage Switzerland.
For relatively recent drivers, Sergey Sirotkin had a masters degree in engineering.
In terms of nerd-level knowledge, it has to be vettel. (See his grill the grid videos)
Sirotkin is smart in racing terms as well. Bro explained how drivers drive in the wet extremely well, back in 2021 on Instagram. I wish he was more talented as a driver, so we could have him on the grid for much longer.
Sirotkin definitely deserved 1 more season, he was honestly not that bad against Stroll. Would have been a more interesting match for Russell than Kubica in 2019 IMO
He was. Unfortunately SMP wasn’t doing too well and Kubica’s Orlen $$$ was too much to overcome
Iirc, if a car that was too garbage to get points, he straight up outqualified Stroll throughout the season
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I belive I recall some talks about Kubica having a 2018 Williams contract on the table, but the seat was taken last minute by Sirotkin. I think he should be grateful for even that one season in F1. Although no hate or anything, I liked the guy.
Don't F1 drivers/prospects give up all higher education completely to get a career? I'd imagine its enough work practising and performing to get a chance. How the hell did Sirotkin have time to earn a master degree? Thats no joke
I can’t find a source that states he got a masters degree, so it might just be Bachelor level (or whatever they call it in Russia). He said it took him 5 years, it was quite a lot and he used all of the many (long haul) flights he had to study.
Yeah a few European countries don’t necessarily have bachelors and can have just masters (like the Netherlands if I’m not mistaken). I’m pretty sure Russia has something similar
There used to be only one type of university degree before going for a PHD before it got split up between a bachelors and masters degrees. Her knowledge is probs a little outdated, but yeah we used to have it like that
Prost and Lauda were both considered very astute, don't know what their formal qualifications were.
Jackie Stewart is clearly very bright, at least in areas related to racing.
> With Lauda Air
Over the course of time, Niki Lauda founded four and sold three airlines:
Lauda Air was the first, he sold that for a huge profit to Austrian Airlines.
He then founded Niki, which he sold for a huge profit to Air Berlin.
Then came LaudaMotion, which he founded as an executive jet operator. When Air Berlin went bust, he took over part of the former Niki operation with the LaudaMotion aircraft operator certificate. He then sold the airline to Ryanair.
And to keep his executive business going when LaudaMotion became an airline carrier, he founded LaudaMotion executive. He never got to sell that one before his death.
Also, the man took on Boeing and won, by offering to kill himself.
When one of his planes crashed because the thrust reverser deployed mid-air (killing 223 passengers and crew), Boeing publically stated that according to their simulations, the pilots could have been able to recover the plane. Lauda disagreed, and argued that the tests Boeing conducted were not performed under the conditions the plane was flying under (for one, the crahsed plane was doing almost double the speed that Boeing used in their simulations).
So he pestered them to do new tests with the correct conditions, and voila, in fifteen attempts he himself performed, it was impossible to recover the plane. So Lauda told Boeing to issue a statement saying as much. Boeing told him that it would take three months to adjust the wording of such a statement, which would mean that for three more months, the world was told that Laudas now dead employees were to blame for the crash (one of which used to be Laudas co-pilot) - Lauda hated that fact.
So he called a press conference the next day and publically said that if it would be possible to recover the plane, he would personally fly a plane, deploy the thrust reversers. Should be fine, right? Boeing of course knew that if Lauda would do that, he would die - And thus were forced to issue a statement saying that the pilots weren't to blame and that it was indeed solely a technical error -i.e., Boeing was to blame.
I mean, the man literally refused to die in that fiery crash at the Nürburgring (Nordschleife) and almost won that championship that year.
Then he wins it the following year instead. Man literally said no to death.
I mean, Boeing were dealing with the guy that literally bluffed his way into Formula 1. Sure, his talents were beyond doubt, but with his uncle (I think) actively bouncing his sponsorship money he made false claims to get his seat with BRM. He turned out to be so good Enzo Ferrari paid off his debts so he could race freely. What a man that was.
Seriously, what were Boeing expecting from someone that bold.
Yes. He was such a badass. IIRC, he also threatened Boeing to try and use the thrust reverser mid-flight in one of his 767s during the investigation of a LAUDA AIR crash that was caused by a faulty reverser (and Boeing denied something like this could happen, blaming pilots IIRC).
EDIT:
I did not recall correctly. They did not blame the pilots but stated that it was recoverable cause they did it in a simulator under different conditions. When Niki couldn't recover the plane 15 times under the conditions "his" plane was in, he asked Boeing to change the wording, but they were reluctant. He then threatened to do it with another 767 and two other pilots to see how recoverable it really was. Boeing then changed it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004
> he also threatened Boeing to try and use the thrust reverser mid-flight in one of his 767s during the investigation of a LAUDA AIR crash that was caused by a faulty reverser (and Boeing denied something like this could happen, blaming pilots IIRC).
i feel that in another life that man would've been a test pilot
Doubt it. I just finished the autobiography on Lauda, he despised and had no interest in anything adventourous with flying, for him the precision requirements of flying was what he enjoyed. I don't remember the exact details, but they talked about how he went up with someone who did aero-acrobatics or something similar, and Lauda hated it.
Airbus A320 as well.
He even held multiple type ratings at the same time. But that permit was revoked by AustroControl when during flying a Bombardier CRJ he forgot that this type was not equipped with an Autothrottle. Stick shaker saved him that day.
There is also a story how he found out about the Airbus A320 RTO logic while taxiing with far more than 30 knots on EDDF's taxiway M. Guess the racing driver never fully left his body.
Michael earned his money purely through driver salary and sponsor contracts though. Niki Lauda earned a lot of his money by running a successful airline.
It's an absolute shame and a loss for everyone. He had just started working on a campaign with the FIA against drinking and driving; but he barely had any time to make inroads.
I don’t think Prost has any formal qualification, as he dedicated his life to racing quite early. But as a french, I can tell you he seems pretty smart when he speaks.
>Rosberg is well known for being multi-lingual (4 languages?) and that speaks well of having a decent number of brain cells
Not only does he speak five languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian) pretty fluently.
Rosberg also was admitted to study Aeronautical Engineering at London's Imperial College and wanted to become an engineer in motorsports, but then his Williams drive happened.
You need A\*A\*A\* or A\*AAA at A-Level including Physics and Maths to even be considered for interview.
That alone is considerably less than 1%.
Rosberg went to school in Germany but they translate other countries' exam systems on to a similar scale.
For our US friends, this would be equivalent to a perfect 4.0 GPA in all of your STEM subjects and around 1500+ SAT score in High School.
The mental commitment and general demand on mind and body for a lot of pro athletes means that most of them are quite well equipped to also handle a lot of academic challenges
Even if you are “dumb” when you are in F1 you are motivated and dedicated. If you apply those principles to school you’d be surprised as to how much you can achieve even with less academic talent
As much as I love Lando, he is very obviously not what you would call conventionally "smart". Im not saying hes *dumb* - I dont believe you would make it in F1 if you were. But he has a shocking lack of basic geographical knowledge for someone who has travelled so much.
I would argue even with very little academic talent as you put it. I got a buddy who had a very bad high school diploma. He worked for a while, went into bodybuilding, got his discipline up in the sky, went back to school and now is working on his master's degree in sports science.
Yeah, there's a reason why the "former gifted kid" stereotype exist: Even if we're not burnt out on high level learning/working, we struggle either to adjust to not being the best, from putting in constant effort, or from having undiagnosed ADHD.
My former head of lab even noted that when it comes to the long working hours of a chemistry PhD, a lot of students with "worse academic achievements" thrive because they're much more used to the graft than the "smarter" students
Rosberg definitely seems real smart. Just the way he speaks, knowledge of the subject, brilliant articulation, everything is right about him. *AND* he beat Lewis in 2016. Ma goat!
He speaks German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and some Polish. His mother was Polish and his father was Romanian so he may know some Romanian too
It's not just some Polish Toto knows, he does bloody interviews in it. It feels so weird seeing interviews of him done in Polish as you wouldn't expect. You wouldn't do that if you were just a intermediate speaker.
I believe that was intentional on Keke's part. IIRC He thought that Finnish/Swedish was a waste of time regarding Nico's future and he also held a grudge against his home country because of how he was treated here (primarily by the media).
I stopped watching in the early 00's after Mika left, but I remember Nico being talked about very negatively as well for not racing under a Finnish nationality.
Don't many, if not most, of the non-English-as-1sr-language drivers know at least 3 languages? I'd say it's pretty common to find drivers who know their mother tongue, English, and at least one other (Italian seems to be quite common).
Speaking 4 languages isn't that unusual for a European, especially one who probably traveled a lot when he was younger. That said he does absolutely come across as fairly intelligent, also very annoying but those aren't mutually exclusive.
>Speaking 4 languages isn't that unusual for a European
i was able to speak 3 languages when younger, but speaking 4 languages fluently (!) isn't something i see quiet often.
yet, there are some current drivers able who speak 4 languages
Verstappen: fluent in Dutch, English and German, able to speak a little bit French
Leclerc: fluent in French, Italian, English, able to speak a bit Spanish
Ocon: speaks French, English, Italian and Spanish
Norris: speaks English and some Flemish Dutch, knows a bit Spanish and Italian
Alonso: fluent in 4 languages (Spanish, English, French, Italian)
about former f1 drivers: Kvyat and de Vries also speak 4 languages
about other motorsports: former MotoGP rider Alex Hoffmann is really good in Italian, Spanish and French alongside the "usual" Englisch and - of course - his mother language German. It was quiet interesting so see and hear him switching languages and translate while being the interviewer for a german tv broadcast of MotoGP races
A lot of motogp riders speak Italian, as Italy is very prominent in both teams and riders, so even foreigners learn it pretty quickly.
One of the funniest examples is Japanese former rider Noriyuki Haga, who when speaking Italian would turn into the opposite of a polite stereotypical Japanese person, using lots of blasphemy and swear words and in general being crass on purpose. "for my training, I only fuck!"
>One of the funniest examples is Japanese former rider Noriyuki Haga, who when speaking Italian would turn into the opposite of a polite stereotypical Japanese person, using lots of blasphemy and swear words and in general being crass on purpose. "for my training, I only fuck!"
So like Yuki Tsunoda is in English.
And similar to him, Brabham. Not a studied engineer, but was insanely adept to it, and is the only guy to win a WCC in q car he designed and manufactured.
Seriously underrated driver.
My read is he is decently smart/logical/rational (usually seen in his type of humour), but not very good at general knowledge/awareness of the world/things.
Indeed. Though most of the grid is rich kids, and Lando stands out among them. (Max for instance, while not Lando levels of rich was definitely raised rich, and is the anti-Lando when it comes to the Geography grill the grids)
For being 100% obsessed with racing all the time, you would think Max would be the racing equivalent of a dumb jock. Instead he can name like every obscure flag in the world.
> Max for instance, while not Lando levels of rich was definitely raised rich
Soft disagree.
In the era Jos was driving in, you wouldn't earn millions of dollars for the kind of backmarker teams he was driving for.
Sure, they weren't poor either, but it's far from the generational wealth that Lando's family holds.
Mark Donohue had an Ivy League engineering degree.
I'm not sure about formal qualifications, but Mike Parkes was more valued by Ferrari as one of their best mechanics than he was as one of their drivers.
Came here to find Mark Donohue. "The Unfair Advantage" sits in my topmost shelf along with Adrian Newey's and Carroll Smith's collection. Too bad so few know of him.
Nico Rosberg also said in one of his videos he got into Imperial College to study aerospace engineering but then became an F1 driver (or something along those lines). That’s probably the hardest engineering school to get into in the UK outside of Oxbridge so he’s clearly pretty switched on.
Vettel and Prost. Vettel is known to be very technical, thorough in preparation and debrief, and has been called a "strategist's dream" by Bernie Collins when they worked together at Aston Martin. I also remember someone on the Beyond the Grid podcast, I don't remember who, saying that Prost remembered everything and would reference specific scenarios from years ago as part of his preparation.
Surely Schumacher gets a shout, brought fitness to F1, data driven approach to driving (for example requesting entry and exit speed reader's in his car), great man management skills, as well as a raft of others. No wonder vettel idolised him!
He reshaped the work and dedication required to be an F1 driver. Even the early championship ending crashes could be considered 'Smart', just maybe not sportsmanlike.
Smartest? I'm not sure, but definitely should be part of the conversation!
Prost used to be a balls to the wall type of driver during his first few years in F1. He had a tendency to overdrive cars like Senna did.
Everything changed during the 1982 German GP at Hockenheim. Didier Pironi drove into Prost's Renualt during an extremely wet practice session and broke both of his legs. It was an extremely violent accident, Pironi never drove again.
Prost confirmed that this incident made him change his whole driving style. That's when he implemented his "win by driving as slow as possible" approach.
That accident traumatized the poor guy. Prost used to be one of the fastest wet weather drivers at the time, he wasn't anymore after that incident.
But at the same time a lot of less intelligent drivers wouldn't have been able to adapt. They would either have carried on and hoped for the best, or more likely have lost their speed and dropped out of racing.
Even with a legend like Lauda to learn from, there are a whole bunch of drivers who would've gone "I'm faster than him, I don't need to learn from him", or not understood how he worked.
He was smart before that. I remember he told how he won a one day test in lower series by down playing all day, so nobody was really caring about him, then during the final race, he won because all the others were busy fighting each others.
I'm going to follow on with some pure conjecture here, but I do feel that a bit of Lauda and his calculating style rubbed off onto Prost while they were at McLaren.
He's definitely very astute, which itself is maybe an even more apt measure of "smart" than a degree.
Some may be smart mathematically, linguistically (cunning linguist, eh?), others just have a knack of reading the room.
Everything Ralf Schumacher says in sky germany makes me question how he was able to operate a F1 car at relative high levels. It also shows why he often looked worse than his teammates
Nico Rosberg was insanely smart, he had an offer (possibly a scholarship? idk)to Imperial College for aeronautical engineering that he turned down for F1, plus he has the highest ever score on the Williams Engineering Aptitude Test
Gerhard Berger once said that Scott Speed is the dumbest driver he has ever seen - and every single interview from his F1 days supports that. To be fair though, Scott was in his early 20s
I mean he can't even locate the US on a map, I don't expect him to have intelligent opinions about our politics. The man's head is purely filled with racing and gaming.
Jack Grealish couldn't even point out where the city he was born (Birmingham) was on a map of england.
I get people at an elite level in a sport requires a lot of focus but my god, that's like elementary school stuff.
I just saw the grill the grid video of 8 months ago wherein they had to put pictures of landmarks on the corresponding country.
Lando wasn't good but I was absolutely SHOCKED by Zhou. The guy has been living in London since 2012 but thought Europe was in Africa. He put literally all the landmarks in the wrong locations, think about the Sao Paulo Jezus statue in Great Britain while he put the Tower of London in Russia and mount Fuji + Pagoda in America.
If you listen to his beyond the grid podcast when there is no camera on him, he's pretty well spoken and rational.
We see these guys in only one specific environment, so I wouldn't judge.
Also in grill the grid, Lance is far from the dumbest in term of general knowledge
Im pretty sure lance had a good education and compared to the drivers on the grid he has a lot of culture, he also says it in one of grill the grid episodes
Naa Stroll in podcasts comes across to at least have adequate intelligence. Lando Norris on the other hand lacks basic knowledge that you learn in Year 5 (whe. You're 9/10 years old)
From everything I've heard, Lance seems to be a decent guy. But every time I see him, I think he looks like a caveman that has been groomed to fit in the modern world
Kimi's driver feedback was really good too. At McLaren, the mechanics loved Kimi's feedback because whatever he'd say that needed to be fixed would be fixed by them, and he would immediately go faster.
He's one of a kind.
Lucas Di Grassi (former Renault junior, raced a season with Manor/Virgin and is now a Formula E stalwart) is a member of MENSA, and has academic papers published related to circuit design.
There was an interview with him in which he says he would have become an engineer if not for racing. Hard to say if that's true buy I'd argue it indicates some smarts.
Unironically, I enjoy watching Latifi’s interviews the most. Polite guy but on top of that, extremely eloquent. I can tell he has certain level of intelligence to possess such critical thinking skill, displayed by his speaking/ explaining manner. That alone made him the most likeable paid driver to me.
Latifi is on my short list of drivers that I think could be pretty decent on the technical/management side of an f1 team.
Also wish the memes would die already. He seems like to nice of a person to have so many (often vitriolic) memes about him.
Kinda like Dalton Kellett, fellow Canadian pay driver over in Indycar.
Desperately out of his depth on track, but a pity that he's going into business instead of engineering
Before he left F1, I used to note the way he talked on interviews, he seems like a smart guy despite not being the best on the grid.
Edited: despite not being the best of the grid.
Tbh, when you come in with millions in your pocket and a f1 background. There's atleast a university that will take you without checking your previous grades.
I remember the top athletes of my region were getting deal from university to get into their program with a lower average then regular folk.
At the same time, any MBA program that would pass up a former F1 driver with a billionaire father that got even an average GMAT score would be making a mistake. 90% of the reason to even go to business school is the network and Latifi's network would be insane.
Yeah, knowing what I know of LBS and its entry criteria, I have to suspect the opportunity to have an F1 driver in their marketing was too good to pass up
Alonso strikes me as a very intelligent guy. He has enough spare brain power while racing to help the stewards make decisions, watch other drivers on the big screen TVs, figure out other drivers' strategies, etc.
The thing with Fernando, and I say this as an admirer of his, he's one of the best at what he does but he puts so much into his craft that when things outside of his control go wrong... especially in his younger years...he lacked the emotional intelligence or awareness when it came to giving feedback/criticism.
With F1 being full of individuals with egos and millions in their pockets strong criticism is bound to blow back in your face especially if you aren't strategic with how/what you say. Its the main reason why he was out of a top drive for as long as he has...and he may very well have been right in what he had to say but he went about it in the wrong way in the F1 world.
Taking a step away for two years really did wonders for him...Winning Daytona 24H and competing in WEC and winning with Toyota really looks like it changed his outlook on things and how he approaches with working in a team.
And of course there is age, time mellowed him out but that intensity and desire to win is as strong as ever and he's been one of the most fun drivers to watch since his return in 2021.
How is this so far down.
Bloke can plot and strategise his own race even when in a battle for 10th. Watched him do it many times at Mclaren.
Knew exactly who he was in a race with, when to pit and who to cover with 5 other cars around him.
Vettel was good at it as well.
This is Lewis Hamilton 1 flaw. He has always relied on his pit wall and sometimes to his own detriment but he is not smart enough to know better.
I agree with this. Fernando, Seb and Max always seem to have brainpower to spare.
Was it Bernadette Collins who said that of Seb? That most drivers usually just about manage to stay in the pocket, but Seb was amazing in his awareness and so on. Fernando had that controversial Australia red flag restart when he was taken out, immediately came out with the Brazil precedent to return to his position if another red flag is waved before a sector is completed. He was ahead of even the commentators with all their info in their booths lol. And Max is probably working out his next iracing setup.
Nobody said nico hulkenberg, dude has a degree in mechanical engineering. Also Sutil was on his way to become a professional pianist until he switched to motorsports.
It's hard to tell, a lot of the modern drivers aren't dumb, just not well educated. That's just what happens is you devote your entire life to racing from age 3. And they never get to show off their knowledge and intellect either, partly because of NDAs, pure competitiveness and the fact that they get paid much more driving an F1 car than to hold lectures on the intricacy of driving one.
I don't think Alonso has a ton of general knowledge, but you can tell he's witty.
There are a lot of different kinds of smarts. Languages is one. Technical knowledge. Racing rules and regulations. Historical knowledge (looking at you F1 Champions list winner Vettel). Street smarts (don't wear expensive watches everywhere, Lando.. Don't chase after thieves who can injure you or end your life over a watch, Carlos. ) Financial smarts - investing in ventures that will lead to a good life after the limited years racing in F!.
Rosberg was the most "calculator driver" I can remember. Apart from the languages he knew exactly how to play his cards at any given time. Also you can tell by his answers to media how he's playing the mindgames 100% of the time.
As a European from a multi-lingual country I can assure you that it is absolutely **not** normal to speak 4 languages fluently.
If you speak your native language fluently, decent English plus a few words in another latin language such as Spanish or French you're already top-tier.
I think Seb is a very smart guy. He’s both logically and emotionally intelligent and has pretty good intellect in terms of fact knowledge too. He just came to mind.
I think it was Jean Alesi that crashed during testing one year because the shadow of the tree that he used as a breaking point moved, definitely not the dumbest but probably my favourite but of f1 trivia
Vettel. He's got fantastic memory and attention span. Every one remember *that* question? He was the only one switched on enough to follow it.
His interests in LGBTQ+ rights, climate change and more also point at someone who's got an avid mind beyond racing.
"Nigel Mansell spent some time in aerospace engineering (rocket scientist?) before dedicating his life to moaning about his car."
That's totally unfair.
He didn't only moan about cars. He also broke them
;-)
I remember hearing Adrian Sutil apparently spoke several languages, was an accomplished concert pianist, and was working on some graduate degree (I don’t remember the focus).
I’ll say vettel here but I think Oscar Piastri is hyper intelligent and is going to make his way into this conversation eventually. The kid is ridiculously smart.
Rosberg gets a nod but I think social smarts is a factor that needs to be taken into account and he’s painfully awkward
From the current grid, I honestly believe Max is pretty smart. Even without finishing high school his geography skills are better than most of us probably, and on Grill the Grid and in the little quizes they sometimes do on the Red Bull socials his general knowledge seems really decent. He makes Checo look dumb but not sure if that's on Max or Checo ;)
Vettel and Prost have to be good candidates. Sirotkin also had a masters in engineering, and Jonathan Palmer is a trained physician and successful entrepreneur.
Jérôme d'Ambrosio is in with a shout. Drove in F1, but is having a very successful career in team management. Side note, also married into the Austrian (ex)royal family.
Another time, but Fangio was very clever. No degrees, he even dumped school (no surprise in that time) to race. But he understood machines. He was very skillful with his hands, knew a lot about mechanics and he gave really good feedback to his mechanics.
I know you're talking about higher education (which he lacked), but he was really smart
Robert Kubica. He finished primary school and knows engineering. Sometimes he even takes the grinder in his hand and corrects the mechanics' mistakes in the paddock.
I think it definitely would have been Nico Rosberg.
Williams drivers used to have to do some sort of Engineering test when they started with the team. Nico has the highest score.
Also he got into Imperial College for an Engineering degree. Pretty sure getting in there is not an easy task.
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Jean-Pierre Jabouille was the last true engineer/driver. He designed the ELF 2J with which he won the 76 Formula Two title, and his work on the RS01 & RS10 was a major contribution to Renault’s first turbo win in 1979.
Absolute chad
Jean Pierre Gigabouille
Must be frightening doing the stiffness calculations on your own car
https://imgur.com/a/239QADi It was the last space frame chassis to win a major championship, 14 years after Chapman had introduced the monocoque design. That alone speaks volumes of Jabouille’s engineering ability. Another cool point…. the car was sponsored by Fromage Switzerland.
For relatively recent drivers, Sergey Sirotkin had a masters degree in engineering. In terms of nerd-level knowledge, it has to be vettel. (See his grill the grid videos)
Sirotkin is smart in racing terms as well. Bro explained how drivers drive in the wet extremely well, back in 2021 on Instagram. I wish he was more talented as a driver, so we could have him on the grid for much longer.
Sirotkin definitely deserved 1 more season, he was honestly not that bad against Stroll. Would have been a more interesting match for Russell than Kubica in 2019 IMO
He beat Stroll in qualifying over the season, I think 13-8. I looked it up recently and am pretty sure that was the number.
Sirotkin did enough to warrant another season of F1 (in my opinion).
He was. Unfortunately SMP wasn’t doing too well and Kubica’s Orlen $$$ was too much to overcome Iirc, if a car that was too garbage to get points, he straight up outqualified Stroll throughout the season
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I belive I recall some talks about Kubica having a 2018 Williams contract on the table, but the seat was taken last minute by Sirotkin. I think he should be grateful for even that one season in F1. Although no hate or anything, I liked the guy.
Don't F1 drivers/prospects give up all higher education completely to get a career? I'd imagine its enough work practising and performing to get a chance. How the hell did Sirotkin have time to earn a master degree? Thats no joke
I can’t find a source that states he got a masters degree, so it might just be Bachelor level (or whatever they call it in Russia). He said it took him 5 years, it was quite a lot and he used all of the many (long haul) flights he had to study.
Yeah a few European countries don’t necessarily have bachelors and can have just masters (like the Netherlands if I’m not mistaken). I’m pretty sure Russia has something similar
The Netherlands has a bachelors/masters system. Not only masters.
Ah! My Dutch department chair misled me! Ty for correction
There used to be only one type of university degree before going for a PHD before it got split up between a bachelors and masters degrees. Her knowledge is probs a little outdated, but yeah we used to have it like that
I figured that was the case. My chair got his PhD in early 2000s
I think Vettel also said he’d have gone into engineering had racing not panned out.
Nigel Mansell I know also had a degree in engineering. He had to get it for his dad to allow him to race.
Having a masters doesn’t mean you’re smart, I’m a prime example.
Prost and Lauda were both considered very astute, don't know what their formal qualifications were. Jackie Stewart is clearly very bright, at least in areas related to racing.
With Lauda Air and his role at Mercedes. Niki is probably the most successful F1 Driver.
> With Lauda Air Over the course of time, Niki Lauda founded four and sold three airlines: Lauda Air was the first, he sold that for a huge profit to Austrian Airlines. He then founded Niki, which he sold for a huge profit to Air Berlin. Then came LaudaMotion, which he founded as an executive jet operator. When Air Berlin went bust, he took over part of the former Niki operation with the LaudaMotion aircraft operator certificate. He then sold the airline to Ryanair. And to keep his executive business going when LaudaMotion became an airline carrier, he founded LaudaMotion executive. He never got to sell that one before his death.
Also, the man took on Boeing and won, by offering to kill himself. When one of his planes crashed because the thrust reverser deployed mid-air (killing 223 passengers and crew), Boeing publically stated that according to their simulations, the pilots could have been able to recover the plane. Lauda disagreed, and argued that the tests Boeing conducted were not performed under the conditions the plane was flying under (for one, the crahsed plane was doing almost double the speed that Boeing used in their simulations). So he pestered them to do new tests with the correct conditions, and voila, in fifteen attempts he himself performed, it was impossible to recover the plane. So Lauda told Boeing to issue a statement saying as much. Boeing told him that it would take three months to adjust the wording of such a statement, which would mean that for three more months, the world was told that Laudas now dead employees were to blame for the crash (one of which used to be Laudas co-pilot) - Lauda hated that fact. So he called a press conference the next day and publically said that if it would be possible to recover the plane, he would personally fly a plane, deploy the thrust reversers. Should be fine, right? Boeing of course knew that if Lauda would do that, he would die - And thus were forced to issue a statement saying that the pilots weren't to blame and that it was indeed solely a technical error -i.e., Boeing was to blame.
wow, respect to him. successive f1 career, successful businessman and righteous?
look up "stubborn" in the dictionary, and you'll see a picture of Niki.
I mean, the man literally refused to die in that fiery crash at the Nürburgring (Nordschleife) and almost won that championship that year. Then he wins it the following year instead. Man literally said no to death.
well you would but he refused to grant them image rights.
And survived being a Boeing whistleblower, as far as we know...
So once again, fly with Airbus marketing
Boeing today would have let him kill himself. In fact, Lauda would have died of a heart attack on the way to the runway.
I mean, Boeing were dealing with the guy that literally bluffed his way into Formula 1. Sure, his talents were beyond doubt, but with his uncle (I think) actively bouncing his sponsorship money he made false claims to get his seat with BRM. He turned out to be so good Enzo Ferrari paid off his debts so he could race freely. What a man that was. Seriously, what were Boeing expecting from someone that bold.
IIRC Niki held type ratings on several Boeing and Bombardier aircraft during his time in aviation.
Yes. He was such a badass. IIRC, he also threatened Boeing to try and use the thrust reverser mid-flight in one of his 767s during the investigation of a LAUDA AIR crash that was caused by a faulty reverser (and Boeing denied something like this could happen, blaming pilots IIRC). EDIT: I did not recall correctly. They did not blame the pilots but stated that it was recoverable cause they did it in a simulator under different conditions. When Niki couldn't recover the plane 15 times under the conditions "his" plane was in, he asked Boeing to change the wording, but they were reluctant. He then threatened to do it with another 767 and two other pilots to see how recoverable it really was. Boeing then changed it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauda_Air_Flight_004
> he also threatened Boeing to try and use the thrust reverser mid-flight in one of his 767s during the investigation of a LAUDA AIR crash that was caused by a faulty reverser (and Boeing denied something like this could happen, blaming pilots IIRC). i feel that in another life that man would've been a test pilot
Doubt it. I just finished the autobiography on Lauda, he despised and had no interest in anything adventourous with flying, for him the precision requirements of flying was what he enjoyed. I don't remember the exact details, but they talked about how he went up with someone who did aero-acrobatics or something similar, and Lauda hated it.
*the precision requirements of flying was what he enjoyed* In practise that's exactly what test pilots do!
There’s an excellent Mentour Pilot video on YouTube about this incident.
Airbus A320 as well. He even held multiple type ratings at the same time. But that permit was revoked by AustroControl when during flying a Bombardier CRJ he forgot that this type was not equipped with an Autothrottle. Stick shaker saved him that day. There is also a story how he found out about the Airbus A320 RTO logic while taxiing with far more than 30 knots on EDDF's taxiway M. Guess the racing driver never fully left his body.
Lauda Motion is hilarious... Lauda means penis in a bunch of Indian languages.
Schumi earned over a billion dollars during his career, he’s gotta be the most successful. Lauda and Lewis are probably 2-3 in some order
Michael earned his money purely through driver salary and sponsor contracts though. Niki Lauda earned a lot of his money by running a successful airline.
Sadly Michael never got a chance to do anything post his racing career
It's an absolute shame and a loss for everyone. He had just started working on a campaign with the FIA against drinking and driving; but he barely had any time to make inroads.
With the nickname, "The Professor," I think it's pretty obvious who the winner of this should be.
Know you’re joking but just in case not, that nickname was about his calculated driving style on track
So you're telling me Valentino Rossi is not allowed to perform open-heart surgery?!?
I don’t think Prost has any formal qualification, as he dedicated his life to racing quite early. But as a french, I can tell you he seems pretty smart when he speaks.
>Rosberg is well known for being multi-lingual (4 languages?) and that speaks well of having a decent number of brain cells Not only does he speak five languages (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian) pretty fluently. Rosberg also was admitted to study Aeronautical Engineering at London's Imperial College and wanted to become an engineer in motorsports, but then his Williams drive happened.
Getting into London’s Imperial college for aeronautical engineering is almost off-the -charts difficult. Britain’s best science university
You need A\*A\*A\* or A\*AAA at A-Level including Physics and Maths to even be considered for interview. That alone is considerably less than 1%. Rosberg went to school in Germany but they translate other countries' exam systems on to a similar scale. For our US friends, this would be equivalent to a perfect 4.0 GPA in all of your STEM subjects and around 1500+ SAT score in High School.
The mental commitment and general demand on mind and body for a lot of pro athletes means that most of them are quite well equipped to also handle a lot of academic challenges Even if you are “dumb” when you are in F1 you are motivated and dedicated. If you apply those principles to school you’d be surprised as to how much you can achieve even with less academic talent
Dont want to hate lando but i dont think hes well equiped for academics
As much as I love Lando, he is very obviously not what you would call conventionally "smart". Im not saying hes *dumb* - I dont believe you would make it in F1 if you were. But he has a shocking lack of basic geographical knowledge for someone who has travelled so much.
I would argue even with very little academic talent as you put it. I got a buddy who had a very bad high school diploma. He worked for a while, went into bodybuilding, got his discipline up in the sky, went back to school and now is working on his master's degree in sports science.
Yeah, there's a reason why the "former gifted kid" stereotype exist: Even if we're not burnt out on high level learning/working, we struggle either to adjust to not being the best, from putting in constant effort, or from having undiagnosed ADHD. My former head of lab even noted that when it comes to the long working hours of a chemistry PhD, a lot of students with "worse academic achievements" thrive because they're much more used to the graft than the "smarter" students
Rosberg definitely seems real smart. Just the way he speaks, knowledge of the subject, brilliant articulation, everything is right about him. *AND* he beat Lewis in 2016. Ma goat!
Yeah. He used to have a podcast and it was clear the guy is brilliant. He must be killing it in business, whatever he is doing.
He had some rather dumb thoughts about covid vaccines unfortunately. That's why he couldn't attend any races in 2022.
Just don't ask him about medical things.
Don't many of the people in the paddock speak multiple languages? Toto speaks 3 or 4. I think Charles speaks english, french and italian.
He speaks German, English, French, Italian, Spanish and some Polish. His mother was Polish and his father was Romanian so he may know some Romanian too
It's not just some Polish Toto knows, he does bloody interviews in it. It feels so weird seeing interviews of him done in Polish as you wouldn't expect. You wouldn't do that if you were just a intermediate speaker.
Surprised Finnish isn’t on there. Would have thought Keke / grandparents would have taught him.
I believe that was intentional on Keke's part. IIRC He thought that Finnish/Swedish was a waste of time regarding Nico's future and he also held a grudge against his home country because of how he was treated here (primarily by the media).
I stopped watching in the early 00's after Mika left, but I remember Nico being talked about very negatively as well for not racing under a Finnish nationality.
Keke thought Finnish would've been a useless language to Nico. Finnish is only spoken in Finland and Nico never even lived here
Don't many, if not most, of the non-English-as-1sr-language drivers know at least 3 languages? I'd say it's pretty common to find drivers who know their mother tongue, English, and at least one other (Italian seems to be quite common).
Speaking 4 languages isn't that unusual for a European, especially one who probably traveled a lot when he was younger. That said he does absolutely come across as fairly intelligent, also very annoying but those aren't mutually exclusive.
>Speaking 4 languages isn't that unusual for a European i was able to speak 3 languages when younger, but speaking 4 languages fluently (!) isn't something i see quiet often. yet, there are some current drivers able who speak 4 languages Verstappen: fluent in Dutch, English and German, able to speak a little bit French Leclerc: fluent in French, Italian, English, able to speak a bit Spanish Ocon: speaks French, English, Italian and Spanish Norris: speaks English and some Flemish Dutch, knows a bit Spanish and Italian Alonso: fluent in 4 languages (Spanish, English, French, Italian) about former f1 drivers: Kvyat and de Vries also speak 4 languages about other motorsports: former MotoGP rider Alex Hoffmann is really good in Italian, Spanish and French alongside the "usual" Englisch and - of course - his mother language German. It was quiet interesting so see and hear him switching languages and translate while being the interviewer for a german tv broadcast of MotoGP races
A lot of motogp riders speak Italian, as Italy is very prominent in both teams and riders, so even foreigners learn it pretty quickly. One of the funniest examples is Japanese former rider Noriyuki Haga, who when speaking Italian would turn into the opposite of a polite stereotypical Japanese person, using lots of blasphemy and swear words and in general being crass on purpose. "for my training, I only fuck!"
>One of the funniest examples is Japanese former rider Noriyuki Haga, who when speaking Italian would turn into the opposite of a polite stereotypical Japanese person, using lots of blasphemy and swear words and in general being crass on purpose. "for my training, I only fuck!" So like Yuki Tsunoda is in English.
I was gonna say, a lot of people living in Switzerland/Belgium can probably speak French, German and English without really trying.
Swiss German should borderline be its own language as well.
[удалено]
And similar to him, Brabham. Not a studied engineer, but was insanely adept to it, and is the only guy to win a WCC in q car he designed and manufactured. Seriously underrated driver.
I think Lando is very lucky that he's good at racing cars
And comically wealthy
That does also help
My read is he is decently smart/logical/rational (usually seen in his type of humour), but not very good at general knowledge/awareness of the world/things.
That could just be standard Rich Kid Experiences The World Differently syndrome, though
Indeed. Though most of the grid is rich kids, and Lando stands out among them. (Max for instance, while not Lando levels of rich was definitely raised rich, and is the anti-Lando when it comes to the Geography grill the grids)
For being 100% obsessed with racing all the time, you would think Max would be the racing equivalent of a dumb jock. Instead he can name like every obscure flag in the world.
Max is fairly smart. If he wasn't racing, I could see him doing really well in life. He's also among the top FUT players in FIFA.
The man doesn't know how to lose. And I'm not saying that in a bad way, he *literally* can't not take a w.
Because he looks up every track to drive in every country around the world. Maybe.
> Max for instance, while not Lando levels of rich was definitely raised rich Soft disagree. In the era Jos was driving in, you wouldn't earn millions of dollars for the kind of backmarker teams he was driving for. Sure, they weren't poor either, but it's far from the generational wealth that Lando's family holds.
Which is what they said. Rich, not Norris family rich though.
Mark Donohue had an Ivy League engineering degree. I'm not sure about formal qualifications, but Mike Parkes was more valued by Ferrari as one of their best mechanics than he was as one of their drivers.
Came here to find Mark Donohue. "The Unfair Advantage" sits in my topmost shelf along with Adrian Newey's and Carroll Smith's collection. Too bad so few know of him.
Nico Rosberg also said in one of his videos he got into Imperial College to study aerospace engineering but then became an F1 driver (or something along those lines). That’s probably the hardest engineering school to get into in the UK outside of Oxbridge so he’s clearly pretty switched on.
Vettel and Prost. Vettel is known to be very technical, thorough in preparation and debrief, and has been called a "strategist's dream" by Bernie Collins when they worked together at Aston Martin. I also remember someone on the Beyond the Grid podcast, I don't remember who, saying that Prost remembered everything and would reference specific scenarios from years ago as part of his preparation.
Surely Schumacher gets a shout, brought fitness to F1, data driven approach to driving (for example requesting entry and exit speed reader's in his car), great man management skills, as well as a raft of others. No wonder vettel idolised him! He reshaped the work and dedication required to be an F1 driver. Even the early championship ending crashes could be considered 'Smart', just maybe not sportsmanlike. Smartest? I'm not sure, but definitely should be part of the conversation!
Alain Prost surely must be up there. Just by how he went racing.
Prost used to be a balls to the wall type of driver during his first few years in F1. He had a tendency to overdrive cars like Senna did. Everything changed during the 1982 German GP at Hockenheim. Didier Pironi drove into Prost's Renualt during an extremely wet practice session and broke both of his legs. It was an extremely violent accident, Pironi never drove again. Prost confirmed that this incident made him change his whole driving style. That's when he implemented his "win by driving as slow as possible" approach. That accident traumatized the poor guy. Prost used to be one of the fastest wet weather drivers at the time, he wasn't anymore after that incident.
But at the same time a lot of less intelligent drivers wouldn't have been able to adapt. They would either have carried on and hoped for the best, or more likely have lost their speed and dropped out of racing. Even with a legend like Lauda to learn from, there are a whole bunch of drivers who would've gone "I'm faster than him, I don't need to learn from him", or not understood how he worked.
He was smart before that. I remember he told how he won a one day test in lower series by down playing all day, so nobody was really caring about him, then during the final race, he won because all the others were busy fighting each others.
I'm going to follow on with some pure conjecture here, but I do feel that a bit of Lauda and his calculating style rubbed off onto Prost while they were at McLaren.
Vettel. Don’t know if he’s the smartest but he’s got a great memory
Yeah he would bring up past questions with the interviewer and tease them about old stuff. He also learned Italian pretty quick.
He's definitely very astute, which itself is maybe an even more apt measure of "smart" than a degree. Some may be smart mathematically, linguistically (cunning linguist, eh?), others just have a knack of reading the room.
Everything Ralf Schumacher says in sky germany makes me question how he was able to operate a F1 car at relative high levels. It also shows why he often looked worse than his teammates
If you wanna see some really dumb shit, check his social media. Especially during Covid times.
Nico Rosberg was insanely smart, he had an offer (possibly a scholarship? idk)to Imperial College for aeronautical engineering that he turned down for F1, plus he has the highest ever score on the Williams Engineering Aptitude Test
Wasn't his place at Imperial? Not Oxford? And I don't think he had scholarship
My mistake, it was Imperial. I remember reading he got a scholarship, but I may well be wrong. I'll edit it rn
Gerhard Berger once said that Scott Speed is the dumbest driver he has ever seen - and every single interview from his F1 days supports that. To be fair though, Scott was in his early 20s
Pretty sure even Scott thinks F1 Scott Speed was dump. He's grown up a lot now.
Vettel strikes me as both intelligent and wise.
I wouldn't call him dumb but Lance Stroll has never done or said anything in his life that makes you think there's intellectual depth to him.
I’d say Lando is even worse, look at all the videos when he gets shown a map, the lad can barely name England on it
Dude failed to identify Canada on a map; and it's not like it's an easy one to miss.
Tbf it is easy to miss all tucked away down there /s
Right next to Checo's homeland of South America
Surprise Simpsons!
Lando’s a proper himbo
Oh absolutely. No thoughts, only vibes.
Yeah I was going to say, at least on recent vintage Lando has to be the dumbest.
Lando...He's a memelord and can drive, but he has major rich kid energy and seems dumb as a rock.
His answer to the questions about Donald Trump showed an awareness of the world on about a level with a head louse.
I mean he can't even locate the US on a map, I don't expect him to have intelligent opinions about our politics. The man's head is purely filled with racing and gaming.
That was clearly him trying to be as inoffensive as possible and it looked like he wasn't prepped for it at all.
Jack Grealish couldn't even point out where the city he was born (Birmingham) was on a map of england. I get people at an elite level in a sport requires a lot of focus but my god, that's like elementary school stuff.
He first didn’t realize it was a map of England
Yeah, I hate to say it but Lando might be able to wheel a car but I'd be concerned about him doing much else because my god.
I wouldn't trust him to drive on the regular roads tbh.
there are a few videos of him answering questions about the Road Theory exam ... it does not go well.
Yeah, I like him, but he is definitely not the smartest one.
I just saw the grill the grid video of 8 months ago wherein they had to put pictures of landmarks on the corresponding country. Lando wasn't good but I was absolutely SHOCKED by Zhou. The guy has been living in London since 2012 but thought Europe was in Africa. He put literally all the landmarks in the wrong locations, think about the Sao Paulo Jezus statue in Great Britain while he put the Tower of London in Russia and mount Fuji + Pagoda in America.
Do you mean Christ the Redeemer, which is in Rio de Janeiro?
Calling *Rio de Janeiro's* most famous landmark "the Sao Paulo Jezus statue" kinda hilariously undermines your point
no way he isn't trolling. wtf
He once pointed at America when asked to show the town he came from on a map. The guy’s fucking clueless.
Speaks 4 languages as well.
If you listen to his beyond the grid podcast when there is no camera on him, he's pretty well spoken and rational. We see these guys in only one specific environment, so I wouldn't judge. Also in grill the grid, Lance is far from the dumbest in term of general knowledge
Im pretty sure lance had a good education and compared to the drivers on the grid he has a lot of culture, he also says it in one of grill the grid episodes
Naa Stroll in podcasts comes across to at least have adequate intelligence. Lando Norris on the other hand lacks basic knowledge that you learn in Year 5 (whe. You're 9/10 years old)
From everything I've heard, Lance seems to be a decent guy. But every time I see him, I think he looks like a caveman that has been groomed to fit in the modern world
Yeah I find endearing it how despite being the son of a billionaire, he's just a dork really.
In Kimi's biography his parents said he didn't speak until he was 3. That to me is a very smart person, speaking is by and large, very overrated.
Kimi's driver feedback was really good too. At McLaren, the mechanics loved Kimi's feedback because whatever he'd say that needed to be fixed would be fixed by them, and he would immediately go faster. He's one of a kind.
- Where does the car need to be improved? - Over a lap.
I didn't speak or walk until I was three, so this clearly means I'm the next Kimi. Well he is my pfp
I can't tell if this is satire lol someone help
Kimi was always Kimi.
Didn't speak after he was 3 either.
Lucas Di Grassi (former Renault junior, raced a season with Manor/Virgin and is now a Formula E stalwart) is a member of MENSA, and has academic papers published related to circuit design.
Oscar Piastri seems smart. Nothing to back it up, but just his vibe
There was an interview with him in which he says he would have become an engineer if not for racing. Hard to say if that's true buy I'd argue it indicates some smarts.
It may not answer the question but since we’re bringing up qualifications, Goatifi is currently doing an MBA at London Business School
Unironically, I enjoy watching Latifi’s interviews the most. Polite guy but on top of that, extremely eloquent. I can tell he has certain level of intelligence to possess such critical thinking skill, displayed by his speaking/ explaining manner. That alone made him the most likeable paid driver to me.
Latifi is on my short list of drivers that I think could be pretty decent on the technical/management side of an f1 team. Also wish the memes would die already. He seems like to nice of a person to have so many (often vitriolic) memes about him.
Kinda like Dalton Kellett, fellow Canadian pay driver over in Indycar. Desperately out of his depth on track, but a pity that he's going into business instead of engineering
Before he left F1, I used to note the way he talked on interviews, he seems like a smart guy despite not being the best on the grid. Edited: despite not being the best of the grid.
Tbh, when you come in with millions in your pocket and a f1 background. There's atleast a university that will take you without checking your previous grades. I remember the top athletes of my region were getting deal from university to get into their program with a lower average then regular folk.
At the same time, any MBA program that would pass up a former F1 driver with a billionaire father that got even an average GMAT score would be making a mistake. 90% of the reason to even go to business school is the network and Latifi's network would be insane.
I teach on a masters in the UK and they'll take anyone with 50 grand and a fucking pulse mate.
Yeah, knowing what I know of LBS and its entry criteria, I have to suspect the opportunity to have an F1 driver in their marketing was too good to pass up
AND he has an F1 title assist, very rare.
Alonso strikes me as a very intelligent guy. He has enough spare brain power while racing to help the stewards make decisions, watch other drivers on the big screen TVs, figure out other drivers' strategies, etc.
The thing with Fernando, and I say this as an admirer of his, he's one of the best at what he does but he puts so much into his craft that when things outside of his control go wrong... especially in his younger years...he lacked the emotional intelligence or awareness when it came to giving feedback/criticism. With F1 being full of individuals with egos and millions in their pockets strong criticism is bound to blow back in your face especially if you aren't strategic with how/what you say. Its the main reason why he was out of a top drive for as long as he has...and he may very well have been right in what he had to say but he went about it in the wrong way in the F1 world.
He's mellowed out immensely over the past decade, and i feel like he's in a new zen state since joining Aston Martin, it's really quite something.
Taking a step away for two years really did wonders for him...Winning Daytona 24H and competing in WEC and winning with Toyota really looks like it changed his outlook on things and how he approaches with working in a team. And of course there is age, time mellowed him out but that intensity and desire to win is as strong as ever and he's been one of the most fun drivers to watch since his return in 2021.
How is this so far down. Bloke can plot and strategise his own race even when in a battle for 10th. Watched him do it many times at Mclaren. Knew exactly who he was in a race with, when to pit and who to cover with 5 other cars around him. Vettel was good at it as well. This is Lewis Hamilton 1 flaw. He has always relied on his pit wall and sometimes to his own detriment but he is not smart enough to know better.
Vettel and Alonso had Ferrari pit wall to deal with, after that they learnt to deal with their own races. Lewis hasn’t had that experience … yet
fred is doing some wizardry at ferrari. need hamilton to join sauber if he wants to learn
I agree, and as a lawyer, I identify some audacity in him that would him a good attorney.
I agree with this. Fernando, Seb and Max always seem to have brainpower to spare. Was it Bernadette Collins who said that of Seb? That most drivers usually just about manage to stay in the pocket, but Seb was amazing in his awareness and so on. Fernando had that controversial Australia red flag restart when he was taken out, immediately came out with the Brazil precedent to return to his position if another red flag is waved before a sector is completed. He was ahead of even the commentators with all their info in their booths lol. And Max is probably working out his next iracing setup.
I know some *thick as pigshit* doctors. On average they're bright, though.
Nobody said nico hulkenberg, dude has a degree in mechanical engineering. Also Sutil was on his way to become a professional pianist until he switched to motorsports.
Does Nico really? Source? When did he get the time for that?
>Nobody said nico hulkenberg, dude has a degree in mechanical engineering No, he doesn't.
I recall Elio de Angelis being a pianist.
yeah good driver, unfortunately gone too young.
It's hard to tell, a lot of the modern drivers aren't dumb, just not well educated. That's just what happens is you devote your entire life to racing from age 3. And they never get to show off their knowledge and intellect either, partly because of NDAs, pure competitiveness and the fact that they get paid much more driving an F1 car than to hold lectures on the intricacy of driving one. I don't think Alonso has a ton of general knowledge, but you can tell he's witty.
There are a lot of different kinds of smarts. Languages is one. Technical knowledge. Racing rules and regulations. Historical knowledge (looking at you F1 Champions list winner Vettel). Street smarts (don't wear expensive watches everywhere, Lando.. Don't chase after thieves who can injure you or end your life over a watch, Carlos. ) Financial smarts - investing in ventures that will lead to a good life after the limited years racing in F!.
I’d say Albon comes across well articulated and seems intelligent, not sure on his educational backround
Bruce Mclaren always struck me as incredibly intelligent at such a young age too.
Rosberg was the most "calculator driver" I can remember. Apart from the languages he knew exactly how to play his cards at any given time. Also you can tell by his answers to media how he's playing the mindgames 100% of the time.
As a European from a multi-lingual country I can assure you that it is absolutely **not** normal to speak 4 languages fluently. If you speak your native language fluently, decent English plus a few words in another latin language such as Spanish or French you're already top-tier.
I think Seb is a very smart guy. He’s both logically and emotionally intelligent and has pretty good intellect in terms of fact knowledge too. He just came to mind.
I think it was Jean Alesi that crashed during testing one year because the shadow of the tree that he used as a breaking point moved, definitely not the dumbest but probably my favourite but of f1 trivia
Vettel. He's got fantastic memory and attention span. Every one remember *that* question? He was the only one switched on enough to follow it. His interests in LGBTQ+ rights, climate change and more also point at someone who's got an avid mind beyond racing.
Not the smartest as measured by academic achievements, but Alex Albon has a stronger analytical mind than many of his contemporaries.
I’d like to coin Alain Prost. They didn’t call him The Professor for nothing.
"Nigel Mansell spent some time in aerospace engineering (rocket scientist?) before dedicating his life to moaning about his car." That's totally unfair. He didn't only moan about cars. He also broke them ;-)
I remember hearing Adrian Sutil apparently spoke several languages, was an accomplished concert pianist, and was working on some graduate degree (I don’t remember the focus).
I say Thierry Boutsen. Why? Because nobody can tell anyway.
Rosberg reportedly holds the highest score on Williams' "driver technical exam" to test a driver's understanding of how the car works
I’ll say vettel here but I think Oscar Piastri is hyper intelligent and is going to make his way into this conversation eventually. The kid is ridiculously smart. Rosberg gets a nod but I think social smarts is a factor that needs to be taken into account and he’s painfully awkward
Pretty sure Lance Stroll is the smartest - he can seemingly do whatever the f\*\*\* he wants keep his seat on the team. /s
From the current grid, I honestly believe Max is pretty smart. Even without finishing high school his geography skills are better than most of us probably, and on Grill the Grid and in the little quizes they sometimes do on the Red Bull socials his general knowledge seems really decent. He makes Checo look dumb but not sure if that's on Max or Checo ;)
Vettel and Prost have to be good candidates. Sirotkin also had a masters in engineering, and Jonathan Palmer is a trained physician and successful entrepreneur.
Jérôme d'Ambrosio is in with a shout. Drove in F1, but is having a very successful career in team management. Side note, also married into the Austrian (ex)royal family.
Another time, but Fangio was very clever. No degrees, he even dumped school (no surprise in that time) to race. But he understood machines. He was very skillful with his hands, knew a lot about mechanics and he gave really good feedback to his mechanics. I know you're talking about higher education (which he lacked), but he was really smart
Robert Kubica. He finished primary school and knows engineering. Sometimes he even takes the grinder in his hand and corrects the mechanics' mistakes in the paddock.
I think it definitely would have been Nico Rosberg. Williams drivers used to have to do some sort of Engineering test when they started with the team. Nico has the highest score. Also he got into Imperial College for an Engineering degree. Pretty sure getting in there is not an easy task.