Bradley always comes back to. There’s enough pressure at this level without compounding it with unnecessary stress.
“One thing I always hark back to is the ethics of the team” stresses Richard.
“It doesn’t matter who you are, whether you’re myself, Michael Schumacher or Joe Bloggs, you can’t win the first time you drive. So why do you continue? You continue because it was fun. The minute I stop having fun you shouldn’t do it. My engineer Greg Wheeler is a strong believer that a happy driver is a fast driver, so we have a great, relaxed atmosphere. Before Le Mans everybody was pretty worked up, but before I started the race I was in the transporter playing with my train simulator. That’s probably the saddest thing anyone can do, but it relaxes me and I can have fun. As long as I’m happy I’ll be fast. Even last year, we were able to take it to the Ligier’s in the previous year’s car because we had a good atmosphere.”
KCMG’s Chief Race Engineer Greg Wheeler had his own up’s and down’s through his career, all the way from World Rallying to Formula One, so he understands the unique demands of high-level racing and how to iron-out any unwanted elements that might affect team performance.
“The good thing about Greg is that he was my first engineer when I first ever drove a racing car and I brought him to KCMG” explains Richard. “So I’ve got a working relationship with him but I’ve also got a personal relationship with him. Greg is quite happy to tell me to **** off when he needs to and vice-versa."
"We can have some big arguments. For example in Bahrain last year I just didn’t perform and he handed it to me like he needed to and the next day I probably had my best race of the year. Greg was very complimentary after that so it’s very important – he’s a big asset to the whole team.”
That’s the atmosphere of KCMG. Nicolas [Lapierre] did a very good qualifying job at Nurburgring and before quali we were discussing who the fastest Frenchman was on the planet. The before he got in the car we had some English v French banter. Likewise before Le Mans, Nic was doing his best Karaoke, which put me in a good state of mind before getting in the car.”
Work hard, play hard. It might have rattled the status quo, but they won’t be changing an approach that has them biting at the heels of their championship contenders.