Dave Weston Junior is grateful to have been chosen to be part of MSA Team UK this year, a national squad of the country’s most promising race and rally drivers.
The team is made up of ten drivers, six racing drivers and four rally drivers. The other three rally drivers often compete alongside Dave – Alastair Fisher, Adam Gould and Martin McCormack.
Regularly meeting up together the boys share ideas and get the chance to receive invaluable tuition from their National Rally Coach, triple British champion Mark Higgins, and the National Race Coach, 2009 Le Mans champion David Brabham. They also gain experience from the involvement of MSA Performance Director and world class co-driver Robert Reid.
It’s not just in the classroom the boys benefit from the scheme either. Mark Higgins attended the Jim Clark International Rally this year to watch Dave, Adam and Alastair’s times coming in and offer advice, and Mark, David Brabham, Alastair and Adam all travelled out to the GEKO Ypres Rally to offer support and advice to Dave and Martin too.
Sadly, Dave’s trip to Ypres meant he missed out on a Team UK 24 hour military training session designed to explore their physical and mental limits. But so far this year he has received tuition from F1 driver trainer Rob Wilson, taken part in multiple physical and psychological tests, been given expert media training and taken part in visits to facilities such as Avon Cooper Tyres and Zytek Engineering to learn more about the mechanics of the sport.
Previous MSA initiatives have separated racing and rally drivers into their own Academies, so another benefit to all members of Team UK is that drivers in both disciplines train alongside each other, giving David the chance to gain tips from racing drivers to help with his performance and vice versa.
The Team UK racing drivers are William Buller, James Calado, Alexander Sims, Will Stevens, Harry Tincknell and Oliver Webb.
For more information on Team UK, click the logo above.