#fraser sheader

[f1-birb]

add_management Still can't believe it... what a weekend 🧡

and some bonus Jontent:

[gattyswriting]

ADD Motorsports Hamilton rival aids young drivers (published May 2013)

If you are like the thousands of Formula One fans to have looked up footage of Lewis Hamilton racing in his younger years, chances are you will have come across the name Fraser Sheader.

In 1998, when Hamilton was just 13, karting stars Hamilton and Sheader went head-to-head over a season in the hugely popular Champions of the Future series, with Sheader coming out as champion. And now, YouTube clips that show Hamilton's rare championship defeat have left racing fans scratching their heads and asking each other in the comments section: "Whatever happened to Fraser Sheader?" The answer is, he never went away. And now his influence on tomorrow's latest batch of stars is growing by the day.

Sheader has put his many years' driving experience back into the sport by setting up ADD Motorsports with business partner Mark Berryman. And while many young British karting stars attempt to rise through the ranks and onto cars through a mixture of talent and luck, their company's philosophy is centred around 'preparation' - and encouraging its young drivers to do just as much off the track as on it to give them a much better chance of succeeding.

"After beating Lewis I carried on karting and had some success at British level, but when it came to making the step up to cars we didn't realise quite how much money it was going to cost," said Sheader. "We were under-prepared.

"But it wasn't just the money, we were under-prepared in many areas, there's so much more you need to be doing years before making the move up to cars. It's something many drivers and their families are just are not aware of.

"There are a lot of teenagers doing well in karting who just aren't ready for what a big step up cars is going to be and that's why we started this, to help bridge that big gap."

ADD Motorsports differs from many other management teams by putting an emphasis on preparing their drivers from a young age so the transition to cars doesn't seem such a big step when they are eventually ready. And it's already paying dividends, with the team looking after drivers from around the world including F3's rising stars Mitchell Gilbert and John Bryant-Meisener, and karting brothers Oli and Lando Norris. British F3 2012 champion Jack Harvey also benefitted from their expertise.

In encouraging a more scientific approach, in body, mind and mechanics, they are watching the drivers they manage come on in huge leaps and bounds.

Lando Norris is one who has blossomed under their tutelage and won the Formula Kart Stars championship title last year, at 12-years-old. He has started this season with two victories from two rounds in the WSK Euro Series. But few outside close family and friends realise the work he is putting in behind the scenes.

An ADD nutritionist has Lando on a tailor-made diet, teaching him how important the right fuel is for the body - not just the engine - even at his tender age; a sports psychologist is on hand to help with his personal development; a gym program focusing on building up parts of the body that are seen as weaker than others has been put together; the list goes on, and is the same for all the other drivers also.

Even areas such as media training are not forgotten, ensuring drivers are at ease with talking to the press and media from a young age, meaning they have one less thing to worry about when they move up to cars.

That's not to mention a host of technical and driving issues ADD measure and adjust regularly with their drivers that they would prefer not to talk about for fear of giving too much away!

"It's the little things that may go unchecked or unchallenged by others, or technical issues that aren't addressed that we concentrate on with the drivers," said Berryman. "Better eating habits, a better mindset and strength conditioning at a young age can boost the driver's performances by a few percent at a time, which translates to a lot more on the track and is the difference between a podium place and an also-ran."

ADD believe sports psychology and driving go hand-in-hand and have embraced the science where others have dismissed it. "Most drivers massively under-estimate how difficult the step up is going to be" commented Sheader. "They step into a Formula car and it can be very demoralising for them. Don't forget, these can be teenagers who are used to winning all the time, and now they get in the car and everything is alien to them. You have to prepare them early for this, make them realise it's not going to be all plain sailing and prepare them for losses early on in that step up as well. If they are not prepared in this manner, the losses can seem even bigger."

Berryman added: "We are pretty much the only team out there doing what we're doing. It's important that the transition is done at the right time and early enough so the drivers understand that the work we are making them do is for the future, not just the present. When they begin to see this, they are a lot more ready to get on board with what we do for them.

"We've just taken Lando and Oli surfing and, although some may be surprised, it's great strength work and a lot of fun as well. But they know why we are doing it and the areas of their body we are trying to strengthen and it gives them something different to look forward to than gym work."

ADD has had no problem finding up and coming or established brands that want to be associated with them, such is their rising stock. They recently tied up deals with headphone and gaming headset brand Skullcandy, fashion brand 7/9/13, action camera company Drift and motorsports clothing outfit Freem, to name a few.

It's exciting times for the company that is certainly on the way up. But as for Sheader, does he ever get a pang of jealousy when he sees Hamilton standing on a podium? "Not at all, he took his chances and is an amazing driver,' he said.

"He has earned his reputation, but it's funny looking back at those videos, they were amazing times. But now it's about helping other young drivers reach their potential. Maybe we can be lucky enough to help find and nurture the next Lewis Hamilton?"

[zyxwl2015]

Some excerpts from the new Lando Norris biography

Although Lando was born into a rich family, his dad, Adam Norris, did not come from wealth himself. Adam's dad was a farmer & mum was a teacher. Adam has dyslexia and he was terrible at school and hated it. So he always has the mentality of working harder than anyone else to success

Lando and his brother Oli tried horse riding, quadbike and motorbike before eventually got into karting. Lando was 7 yo when he first started racing in karts

Adam was not willing to just buy the best equipment for his sons, instead he wanted to develop them. He approached Mark Berryman and Fraser Sheader in 2011 for help, Mark and Fraser has just founded ADD management in 2010 and their philosophy is on "developing and nurturing talents" rather than "just place them in teams", so they matched perfectly.

Mark on first meeting Lando: "for at least the first nine months he didn't listen to a word I said. "(😂😂) They were doing great with Oli because he was listening, but Lando just wasn't listening, but even then he's still winning races because he's really fast

Lando is the polar opposite now: he listens to everything Mark suggests. Brazil GP 2022 when Lando was on track, Mark texted Jon some suggestions, and Lando tried it straightaway. Out of Mark's students now, Lando is the best at "if you put something forward, he just does it".

Lando was so incredibly fast at that early age that people were convinced he/the team was cheating. One race when he was in the junior category, his lap time was so incredible that it would have put him in top 6 in the senior category

Lando had two crucial meetings in 2014, one was Jon Malvern, who's still his trainer to this day, the other was Trevor Carlin, who's the boss of the Carlin team, with which Lando competed from 2015 to 2018

Fraser approached Zak Brown in August 2016 to help bring some commercial values to ADD management. Zak at the time was the co-owner of United Autosports, a sports-car team. They agreed on a deal, and Zak then became part of the core Norris team together with Jon, Mark and Fraser. Little did they know Zak would soon became CEO of McLaren (😂)

February 2017. Charlotte Sefton was setting up a filming event on the Boulevard of MTC. She was making sure no one is on the Boulevard, tours was canceled, etc, apart from one guy "Lando Norris", who's a "VIP guest" and "it's top secret". Charlotte went "who's this guy?" and looked up on the Internet. (😂) Later that day she saw this shy kid got out of a Mini, said "hello" to her and walked to Zak's office. Days later Lando was confirmed as a junior driver for McLaren

(This book isn't as interesting as I initially thought, it's mostly "Norris raced in xxx series in year xxxx and did xyz"; but it does have a lot of quotes from people around him & some behind-the-scenes stories)