Karting Coach Costs: What €500 a Day Actually Buys You

You keep seeing driver coaches at the track and you always wonder whether you should get one for yourself or not. And if so — should you get one for every race, or just some races, or just practice days? Or for every single day of driving?

These are the questions every driver asks himself. But the bigger question is: is a coach even worth it? Do I even need a coach? Can I just coach myself? Is it enough to use my mechanic, or my dad, as a coach — even though he may not have any racing experience? These are the questions drivers and parents of drivers ask themselves all the time.

Coaching barely existed 20 years ago

It's what I asked myself in formula cars too. To be honest, back in the day — 15, 20 years ago — there wasn't really any such thing as a karting coach. Unless you were talking about the two legends, Terry Fullerton and Mike Wilson, there weren't any other coaches at the track.

Now it's very popular. There are many, many coaches — even coaches who aren't very experienced. They may have done some karting races here and there, or not have raced at all; they were mechanicing, or just involved in motorsport for a while, and now they're coaching. So you get a wide range of coaches. The more experienced they are the better, and they must have been racing drivers themselves.

Picking a coach who has never driven is almost like picking a personal trainer who has never hit the gym once in his life.

You wouldn't want to learn from somebody who has never been there and done that. That's my prerequisite: if you want a coach, make sure you go for a really good one, with lots of experience, who can teach you the good stuff. Otherwise you end up learning from someone who doesn't even know what he's talking about — he's just there to earn some money, and it looks like an easy living. You should have a background that justifies you becoming a coach. That's always what I think, and it's funny — I'm seeing many people turn up and become coaches out of nothing.

Of course, if you've been in the environment for many years, even if you're not a driver yourself, you may pick up coaching tips here and there that are genuinely useful. They probably are useful. But the reality is you need to have felt it. You need to have driven it. The high-pressure races, the feeling of driving on the limit — how can you really teach someone when you've never raced yourself, never chased that perfect lap, never driven at the limit of the grip?

Your kid only rises to the level of the coaching he gets

So that's priority number one: if you want to hire a coach, do your background checks and make sure he has the reputation and is worthy of being hired. And your kid is going to listen far more easily if the coach has a reputation as a great driver himself, with real success behind him. If you hire a coach who has barely driven — or did, but only at an amateur level, never claimed any title — it's hard for the kid to listen to him, and hard to turn that kid into an outstanding, world-class driver.

You only rise to the level of the coaching you receive.

Kids are very malleable, so they're going to listen to authority — which in this case is the coach. But if they listen and apply the bad stuff, they're not going to become great racing drivers, and there'll be tons of wasted potential and regrets down the line for having hired an unprofessional or unskilled coach.

Because at the end of the day, coaching is a skill of its own. You may be a really fast driver, a really successful one, and still not be a good coach — because you may not know how to translate your thoughts into words, and turn those words into actions from the driver you're coaching. With full transparency: I consider myself not that great at it in the beginning, when I transitioned from driving to running the team. When I run Babyrace I'm mostly taking care of performance and coaching, and that's what I really enjoy, because it translates into performance and race wins. But I wasn't great when I started out. Now I feel so much better, and I can take on whatever excuse a driver makes, or any objection when he's told to try something.

Experience helped me a ton, and I wouldn't be able to coach the way I do now without the background I was lucky to get — all the races I did, thanks to my dad investing in me and getting me into this sport. I'm grateful for that. But I also worked really hard and developed my skills off track, becoming a better all-round racing driver, which eventually made me a good coach. It takes tons of experience, tons of time, and work — I read a lot of books, not only about being a fast racing driver but about psychology, sports psychology, how to increase your performance as an athlete. That matters. It's not just about nailing the perfect lap; it's about being a whole-round athlete.

What a karting coach actually costs

So let's get back to the money. A good coach for one day is going to cost you roughly €250 to €350 just for the coaching. Then you have to include expenses: the hotel, if he's staying for a race — at least €100 for expenses and hotel — plus travel, say another €50 to €100 a day, plus dinner, breakfast, food in general.

Look at an average of €300–350 a day, plus about €100–150 a day for expenses. You'll be spending north of €500 per day on a coach.

So the normal question is: is that even worth it? Because with that money you could maybe double your track time for the month. If you're tight on budget, you're probably better off avoiding a coach, because at least you get more seat time. Get yourself a really experienced mechanic instead, or some form of remote or group coaching — like the group coaching I run at Senndit on the off days from the track, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays — and you can get the knowledge and education you need. Then, when you go to the track, you apply those lessons. That's what you should be doing on a tight budget. Track time isn't cheap either, so it's worth knowing what a season really costs before you allocate anything to coaching.

If you have unlimited budget, then sure — get the best coach you can, drive the most days, with the best equipment.

The case for leaving the driver alone

Here's the counterintuitive part. In some cases you need to be inside your own head and fix the driving in the corners by yourself, without someone telling you. I prefer to leave my drivers alone on the track. I want them to self-assess — to be more self-aware about where they have to improve, to spot their own mistakes and self-correct them the next session.

I believe this is a key skill a driver needs. That's why at Babyrace I push them to work on themselves and figure out for themselves where they need to find the lap time. I give them access to my PC so they can find their own errors — by looking at PURPL, by looking at Race Studio 3, or by watching their own videos. They can figure it out themselves. And it's good, because once kids learn it, they apply it almost like a game: they're climbing from level to level. It's the same self-review habit I break down in reviewing your own lap.

So yes, a coach is very useful — I suggest working with a very good coach, but picking and choosing some days where you get as much value as possible: detect the areas where the driver is losing time, so the coach can help him fix them. You can't expect to have that coach everywhere you drive. Really good coaches are hard to get; the world-class ones probably aren't in your nearby city, or even your country. Most of the best coaches are in Italy, the UK, and some in the US. If you're not in those countries you can still find really good coaches — and honestly it's quite subjective, because you may get along with one coach where another driver wouldn't. But objectively, the best coaches concentrate where there's the most action and the most races. Here at Lake Garda, around South Garda Karting, then Franciacorta and Cremona — that's where the most races in Italy are, and the highest density of coaches. That's the place to get really good coaching and really good track time. If you want to set up testing days with a team, contact the coach first and arrange everything.

The 80/20 way to afford a great coach

So look selectively for days where you can get a coaching upgrade in your driving. That's how you make it affordable: a couple of days a month with a really good coach on a really good track will help you a lot. It's the Pareto principle — the 80/20 — where with 20% of the effort you get 80% of the outcome.

If you have 10 days of driving in a month, do two days of really high-level coaching, and use the other eight to drive by yourself, focusing on the areas your coach assigned you.

That's roughly what I do at Babyrace. And I really love the group coaching I run at Senndit, because it helps drivers a lot while staying super affordable — less than the cost of a set of new tires per month. It makes a difference without breaking the bank; the same logic behind regular coaching sessions rather than one-off days.

What a coach actually does with your day

So what are the actual tasks a coach does with you?

• He watches all of your videos — most of the time with you.
• He watches the data from your sessions on your data logger.
• He makes sure everything is set up properly: charged, working, so you're not wasting time.
• He usually brings his own cameras, but you'll have to use your own data logger — MyChron, Alfano or Unipro — so make sure that's all set.
• He watches you on track, gives you signs, stops you in the middle of the session and tells you what to fix.

That last one matters more than it sounds, and it's where I disagree with where the sport is going. Nowadays some coaches give live coaching tips over a radio. I don't think that's good. The driver becomes a bit spoiled — he receives all this coaching live. It may work right away when the kid is very young, but it's a short-term strategy and not good long term, because a driver needs to stay by himself, in his own head, when he's driving. It's one of the few times in his life where he can be peaceful, be by himself, and use his creative side to design the best racing lines and carry the most speed in the corners.

Live radio coaching is like growing something with steroids so it gets bigger faster. It looks great short term. Long term I think it does damage.

It's growing rapidly and I'm worried about it. When they're very young it can help — oh, I need to open up the track, I need to use more brakes, I need to get to the apex — yes. But I'd prefer to stop the kid mid-session, almost like an open-pit day: stop the kid and go again, stop the kid and go again. He gets the awareness, then he goes out and does it himself, instead of being told every corner, every lap, what to do. Being told everything live costs him awareness, costs him adaptability, and leaves him feeling lost and alone in a race, when the radio support isn't there to save him from slow lap times.

Bring your own camera — and pick the right one

Whatever else, always have a camera with you, in case your coach's is broken or out of battery, so you can take the most out of your day. You should have one anyway for the days you don't have a coach.

Get yourself an Insta360 GO 3S, or simply a GoPro. But you need to see the inside of the corners well, and that's where a GoPro normally doesn't help — it's on the left-hand side, so you often can't see the apexes of the right-handers properly. The Insta360 clipped on your visor works really well. Make sure your video quality is genuinely good, so you have a real idea of what to improve — and better still, line the video up with your data.

So what's the return on investment?

Is there going to be a good return on all the money you spend on a coach, or is it money thrown away? It really depends on the coach. If he's outstanding and you receive world-class help, of course you're going to upgrade your driving, and whatever thousands of euros you spend in a year will create a return in results. If you get a coach for two or three days and that coach makes you a tenth per lap faster — everyone would take that trade every day.

It's sometimes hard to quantify and tangibly see. And when you get a coach you may not win or get faster right away — you shouldn't even be thinking that. Because at the end of the day the coach points out the things you have to work on, where you have to improve. He can't do those things for you.

Many parents of drivers say: I got that coach, but my kid hasn't won yet, he hasn't been fastest, he hasn't set any pole position. You have to remember the coach helps the kid, but the coach doesn't drive for the kid. The kid still needs to go out there, find the lap time, and push his limits himself. That's the driver's responsibility. What's changed is awareness: before, he was guessing, driving a bit more clueless, following other drivers to get a vague idea of where he was losing time. Now he has a clear idea. But he still has to do it. If he's braking five meters earlier than everybody, he has to find the courage to brake five meters later. If turn one needs to be flat, he needs to take it flat. Getting the best coach in the paddock doesn't automatically make you the best driver — you still have to go out and push yourself.

That's what I remind the parents all the time, and the drivers too. At the end of the day it's the driver who has to push beyond whatever mental limit he has, carry more speed, take more risks. You have to be fearless and take risks in racing, otherwise you'll be mediocre — and there's no space for mediocre drivers in Formula 1.

Do you ever stop needing a coach?

If you get very good, you probably won't need a coach as much as you did at the beginning. But a coach can always help you, even then. Think about tennis players: they all have a coach, even the world number one. Because it's always a great return on investment.

He always has two eyes on you. He can look at your posture, your movements, your psychology, understand your mood — and from your body language, understand what you're thinking and feeling while you're driving. He has to help you with that too, because it's not just about technique. Most of the time it's mostly about mindset and psychology. That's exactly the part an AI can't see, and why the two work together rather than against each other. That's why coaches are really useful — but make sure you select a really good one, a world-class one.

It's better to not learn anything new than to learn bad things from bad coaches.

If you want to join the group coaching at senndit.com, we run a six-month training program where we meet once or twice a week on a group call, plus multiple hundreds of lessons in the library you can access any time. The best part is the group coaching, and the drivers seem to enjoy it — so check what a coach is really for if you're weighing it up. And follow your AI karting coach, which is PURPL: listen to the feedback it gives you. I'm putting myself in the position of improving the app every single day, every single week, so you can have the best coaching and performance experience.