Episode Transcript
Speaker A
00:00:06 - 00:02:25
You're listening to the Motorsport Prospects Podcast. Hey, it's Mark from Motorsport Prospects, and welcome to the Motorsport Prospects Podcast. This is where we dive into the world of motorsport with people who live and breathe it, from driver coaches and sponsorship experts to team owners, pro drivers, and more. You'll hear real stories, practical advice, and insights you can actually use whether you're just starting out or already chasing success on the track. Now, people have asked me why I started Motorsport Prospects, and I started Motorsport Prospects and the Verified by Motorsport Prospects designation after hearing the same question time and again from drivers, aspiring drivers, their families and advisors, And the simple question was, who can I trust? Now, many people have had a hard time figuring out who they could trust, or they've been burned in the past, and so they're very cautious about who they can trust, and who they can trust not only with their driving career, but with their money. So I basically created Most Worth Prospects to help them make informed decisions. The professionals I feature on this podcast represent that trust. These are true motorsport professionals. Now, if you work with drivers or racing teams, building trust is one of the most important things you can do, as you know. So over the years, I found that being clear about what you offer, following through on your promises, and genuinely caring about your clients' goals makes all the difference. So what I've done is I put together a bit of that practical advice in a free white paper called The 3 Essentials for Motorsport Business owners that you can download either in the show notes or on Motorsport Prospects, and it shares simple ways to strengthen relationships, attract the right clients, and grow your motorsport business naturally. So with all that out of the way, let's get started. My guest today is Ludovic Pezé. Ludovic is a driver developer and driver manager as well as a consultant. He also scouts talent for F1 teams and he's a meningitis survivor. Welcome to the Motorsport Prospects, uh, podcast, Ludovic. Thanks so much for taking the time out. And I think despite the fact that we talked about this, I think I butchered your last name already.
Speaker B
00:02:25 - 00:02:31
No, it's fine. Thank you, Mark, for receiving me in your podcast, and I'm really happy to, to be part of it.
Speaker A
00:02:33 - 00:03:22
Now, we've talked quite a bit over the years. You've been interviewed for the Motorsport Prospects blog, News Racers Can Use. And we are very much of the same mindset when it comes to this whole issue of who can you trust. You have the experience, obviously, and you've seen it firsthand where there are certain people that for sure you want to trust your career and your money with, and other people maybe not so much. So, so basically Like I tell everybody, it's one question, one simple question, but maybe not so simple. Now, based on your extensive experience and expertise as a motorsport professional, what would be the one most important piece of advice you could offer a current or aspiring race driver?
Speaker B
00:03:23 - 00:05:32
Oh, as you say, a really tough question. But I would say regarding the points, I think the best advice is like, don't trust everything people are telling you at the racetrack, because most of the time that's how they get confused first. They go to the racetrack, karting racetrack, someone tries to sell them a dream of F1 or whatsoever, and this is how it's escalating. And that's the problem. So I think that that's the first part of the answer, if I can say. That they should not trust what everybody says on the racetrack, or the famous, "Oh, we heard of they are doing this," all this kind of expression that you can hear in the paddock, that you should be very careful because it's not always true what is behind the sayings. And I think if you're a parent and you want to be involved in motorsports, you have to do some research, meaning I see a lot of parents just going to the racetrack, starting karting for their kids, let's say, as leisure karting first because they are very young kids and they want to have fun. And then someone at the track or the parents see there is potential in the kid, so they want to move forward. And they go forward and they start to engage in competition without understanding the whole spectrum of the thing, meaning they don't understand what costs will be involved. So they start, let's say, you're paying a session of karting for leisure karting. It's funny. It's not that expensive. And from one day to another day, they start to tell you, oh, let's go in competition. And you start to burn like quarter million without knowing where you're going, without knowing what is the next step, who are the serious people. What are the right people, and as you say, even better, who are the trusted motorsport professionals that can help and guide you. And I think that's the best advice I could give to a parent.
Speaker A
00:05:33 - 00:05:54
So yeah, who you can trust, that's, um, that's obviously clear. Uh, what— so I mean, obviously Motorsport Prospects is being built in order to help people find these trusted people, but do you have any tips on how, you know, when you say do your research, do you have any tips aside from Motorsport Prospects? How would somebody figure out who it is that they could trust?
Speaker B
00:05:55 - 00:07:28
I would say Motorsport Prospects, of course, that's the basics you have to start with because you can find pretty much, uh, contact articles, names that are in motorsport already. Then I would say Most probably just Google it, or as everybody is now on social network, you can find out on LinkedIn or Instagram, and you can get quite fastly a picture of who you are dealing with. Because there are a lot of people that are saying, oh, I'm doing that, I'm a manager, and so on. And when you're digging, you realize those people, they don't really have experience in motorsport. They don't even have, I would say, I'm not stepping in, but they don't have diplomas or at least certificates that guarantee you that they learned the basics. And they don't have results on track. So they are basically just sharks trying to get your money. And I think that's the easiest way to find with whom you are dealing with. And particularly, I would say in motorsport, in some ways, it's quite a small world. So at some point, if someone is really professional and doing a good job, I think the name— you will start to hear the name back from different sources, different people, and different places.
Speaker A
00:07:29 - 00:07:45
Right. So you are a development coach. You work with drivers. You manage drivers. Tell me a little bit about your company. And how that works. Now, and you're based out of Monaco, I believe, correct?
Speaker B
00:07:46 - 00:11:50
Yeah, correct. So at the beginning, I founded Motors Formula Team, known as MFT, in 2014. Uh, the goal was more at the beginning, I would say, to fund my own team because I wanted to do the thing the right way, meaning I saw so many things not working well in the team that I wanted to have the perfect team. So that's how I started, but then I realized that the biggest problem in motorsport is mostly around the drivers, and that's why I went more management, because I did management studies at Contenty Studies. I was already doing management in football and coaching in football, and I found a lot of similarities. And I had my experience of motorsport doing big karting myself. My dad was a mechanic and race mechanic. So, and being in Monaco, even if you're from a normal family, you see all the time things around F1 and motorsport. So it was not new to me. But what I realized is like a lot of very good drivers, they are kind of lost because there is something in the paddock, someone tell them something, and at the end, this is not the reality. This is not the concrete opportunity for them to step up to do another category or things like this. So that's why I started to focus more on the management. And then after years, I would say particularly after the COVID I get more approached by young parents that have their kids starting and see what I'm doing and say, do you take care of kids and so on? I was like more into race cars, not yet or not anymore in karting. I was like, hey, if there is some demands, I should maybe take a look and jump in. So I went back to the karting, back to the basics as we said, and from that I started to see different talents from all around the world, I would say pretty much. Like I scouted drivers from South Africa, from Brazil, from Nordic countries, from UAE, even India. Um, so, so that's, that was the thing. And then how it went to the, um, I would say F1 scouting and that kind of things was, in fact, I was like, okay, it's for a while that people are telling me I have a really sharp eye to find the talents. I'm really good at detecting the talents no matter where they are driving or racing around the world. So maybe this is something that could be interesting for some F1 teams. So I was like, Abu Dhabi 2024. I send an email to one of the team and say, watch, this is what I'm doing. This is who I am. If you are interested, maybe we should have video call. And that's how we started. We got the video call. Seems that we are very aligned in terms of values and expectation. And from that, I started to give them, drop them some names till, uh, I would say the last days, one, one got a pre-contract to integrate the academy. So I cannot reveal any names yet, but let's touch wood and you would see probably in a couple of months, uh, who is the driver in question. But yeah, that's what I managed to do. And with the company, I'm not alone. We have a couple of people working in terms of mental coaching, performance coaching, as you know, with Caroly, for example. We have my partners like Fabrice that was part of Renault F1 team when they won all the titles in the '90s and 2000s. Even worked with Ayrton Senna, which I think in terms of experience, to have a guy like this, you can't dream of having a better partner than someone that worked with Ayrton Senna and different drivers.
Speaker A
00:11:50 - 00:11:51
Yeah.
Speaker B
00:11:51 - 00:12:29
Um, I have one of my partners in Monaco, Rainer, that worked with many celebrities, um, in the show business, including Michael Jackson, and he was taking care of merchandising and things like this. He worked also in F1 sponsorship in the '90s and 2000s, including with Michael Schumacher. So I think all in all, the people that I brought in the team they all have their experience of business and motorsports and, and their own vision, which is kind of matching with mine, but also a guarantee that sometimes I'm not like just blurred or just too focused on the talent.
Speaker A
00:12:29 - 00:12:29
Yeah.
Speaker B
00:12:30 - 00:12:58
And, and on one point they can tell me, hey, did you look after this aspect of the driver or this aspect of the performances or this aspect of the marketing? Or what kind of storytelling we should define and use for the driver, because nowadays, as you know, it's very important. So that's the point. That's how it went that way, I would say.
Speaker A
00:12:59 - 00:13:06
Okay, great. So if people want to get a hold of— find out more about MFT, obviously connect with you, where would they go?
Speaker B
00:13:07 - 00:14:07
So easily, we have Instagram, so it's MFT Racing. Then we are on LinkedIn as well, Motors Formula Team. And our website is motorsformulatim.com. So you can find, I would say, most of the information. See, of course, with which drivers we worked, the results. I would say I'm quite happy because 2025, out of 4 drivers, we got 3 drivers that became champions. And the 4th one was just relocated from Brazil to Europe. And the small amount of races he did, he managed to do podium as well. So I think in terms of performance, I can't complain. And I'm quite happy because it was the results, not only the results on track, but the results of our working methods. So now it's a proven working method and we know we can apply it no matter if it's karting, endurance, or more. And that's why it made me really happy of Very cool.
Speaker A
00:14:07 - 00:14:35
And I will be posting all these links in the show notes, so everybody will have a chance to, to check that out and follow. Um, Ludovic is a great person to follow just for some pretty interesting advice and insights into motorsport. Um, as we end our discussion, I have to ask you— I ask this to everybody. Um, got a funny feeling I might know the answer, but what is your favorite racetrack, either current or historical?
Speaker B
00:14:35 - 00:15:58
I would say, as I can say, and I can reply for only one racetrack, I will take the easiest way for me. It's Monaco, it's my place of birth. I grew up there. A lot of people I know because of late F1 races, I would say the past F1 races, were not so convinced. But I think it's a race that you should not watch on TV. I know it's expensive, but it's a race that you should experience by seeing by yourself. Maybe with the historic F1 because it's quite cheaper compared to the current F1, but this gives you the idea of what is an F1 car and what are the skills of the driver because people forget about the challenge. Like they're getting up to 300 km/h with track that is— the width of the track is like basically two cars and a half. So it's something really insane. And I think that's why some people don't understand because the TV doesn't really show how it is. The cameras sometimes are not really accurate to what is the reality of the thing. But that's why you hear most of the time the drivers say, if there is one way to win in F1, I want to win Monaco. Because of the challenge.
Speaker A
00:16:00 - 00:16:19
Yeah. And I find TV doesn't also give justice to the elevation change. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of elevation, and it's— I find TV always flattens out that, you know, it's very difficult. Same with Spa, you can never— it's hard to tell that there's this massive incline and, and drop.
Speaker B
00:16:19 - 00:16:40
That's what I was going to say. If you take the, the Spa, the Radillon The, the Ostende, uh, straight uphill is, is really massive. It's, it's really uphill. So people seeing the TV, it's like flat, but it's like you're going to the Space Mountain and you're getting catapulted. It's exactly the same type of, of straight line.
Speaker A
00:16:41 - 00:17:47
Yeah, yeah. My, uh, my bucket list is the— I, I want to go to the historical race at Monaco. That, um, you know, I, I— that's definitely in, in the works. But thanks so much, Ludovic, for being on the podcast. Really appreciate it. Like I said, we've talked for years, and, um, you're very much aligned with what, uh, what I'm doing with Motorsport Prospects. And for a very simple reason: you want to see people succeed, and you want to see, you know, and you care about motorsport. Um, and, um, I think that's really what certainly the people that are on the podcast have always been about, is that they're passionate about motorsport, and they want people to have a good, a good experience. So thanks so much. It was great chatting with you. That's it for this week. This is Mark from Motorsport Prospects reminding you to stay fast, stay focused, and keep chasing that checkered flag. Thanks for listening to the Motorsport Prospects podcast. For insights, advice, and the latest news racers can use, Visit motorsportprospects.com.
