A young racing driver’s career is a precarious thing, with certainty, stability, and usually money, in short supply.
Their successes are public, but so too are their failures; their fates are often at the mercy of others with their talent only one element of a much broader discussion.
A Speedcafe investigation into the cost of junior racing revealed the staggering price of a youngster’s formative years, with costs easily exceeding $16 million in an industry worth nearly $4 billion annually.
With costs so high, a driver can ill-afford to simply run the gauntlet and needs to make every step count.
Key to that is the negotiation process, where one of the most significant decisions of a driver’s progress is made before a ever sitting in the car.
According to Mansell, those initial meetings are a journey of discovery for all involved.
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“They’re quite fun meetings to be a part of, because you just sort of speculate about your future,” the Australian F3 racer explained when Speedcafe asked what goes on behind closed doors.
“At a point, you’ve got to sell yourself; I’ve done this, this, this.”
In his second season of Formula 3, Mansell has finished on the podium four times this year – three of those feature race second places.
It followed a switch from Campos Racing last year, where he netted two podiums in his rookie campaign, to ART for 2024.
That proved a $2.4 million gamble that has paid dividends as Mansell remains an outside chance of the championship with one round remaining.
It also strengthens his negotiation position with new teams; high quality drivers typically obtain better results, which reflects well on the team and helps it realise a higher asking price from the next wave of drivers.
While there is no set figure, a season in Formula 2 comes with a price tag of around $4 million.
At junior levels, it is typically the driver who pays their way – or a benefactor prepared to invest in them, such as an F1 academy programme.
Given the majority are self-funded, striking a balance between the right team for the right money is paramount.
For Mansell, conversations have taken place with ART, but such is the industry that, while that offers a simple solution for next season, it may not be the best one.
As a driver preparing to take the final step before Formula 1, the decision must be the one that serves the driver’s best interests, which is not necessarily the same as the one that is most convenient.
All the while, there is an elephant in the room that necessitates laying your cards on the table; revealing what you need and how the team might service that.
“There’s been a few circumstances where I’ve sat down with some teams and it’s been very positive,” Mansell explained.
“What actually happens in those meetings is you sit down with the team boss and you go through what you want out of the team.
“You go through what you need, your requirements as a driver to flourish, essentially.
“I’m very positive with words of affirmation, so I need an engineer to tell me that I’m doing a good job when I’m doing a good job, rather than just ‘box this lap, finish the session’.
“And if I’m doing a corner wrong, I need to be told specifically, ‘Okay, we need to break so much later’ rather than ‘You’re doing a shit job in this corner’.
“If they’re not willing to give me an engineer that is going to support me, physically and emotionally…
“Physically, being at the track, being in talks and in debriefs and going into the data, and engineers that are really in depth, I think, is something that I’ve thrived on.
“Emotionally is, you’re going to have awful days in the car where you just don’t gel with it. You’re going to have days where, prime example is Barcelona, where everything just comes together and you stick it on pole and it’s going to be amazing.
“But I need them to act the same throughout that process.”
A key aspect of the negotiation process is identifying and understanding any limitations that exist within the team, how a driver will be treated versus a their team-mates, relationships with other organisations that might be of value (F1 team academies, for instance) and other aspects like crash damage.
No matter how well discussions have gone, and how good the fit between driver and team is, it all comes down to money.
“In Formula 2, you still have to pay quite a big sum of money – which I’m definitely not disclosing in any circumstance,” Mansell admitted.
“Obviously it can then turn quite frivolous and it can obviously turn south if it’s too much.
“It’s unfortunate sometimes because I know drivers in the past, the team have loved them, they’ve loved the engineers, the engineers have gelled really well, and when it came to the money, it’s just too much.”
In Mansell’s case, much of that discussion happens without him present.
The Novocastrian has a manager working on his behalf, and supportive parents who help steer their son’s career as best they can.
“At the end of the day, it’s the driver’s job to drive,” he reasoned.
“That’s why I have manages, so they can do that part and I can do the driving part.
“Over half of the meetings that have taken place, I haven’t even been in there for them,” he added.
“My dad, my mum, my manager all know what’s happening.
“I just prefer to get little bits and pieces. I obviously want to know what’s happening, but I don’t want to know the full story because I trust [my manager] and I trust my parents.”
Though nothing is locked away, after two seasons in Formula 3, Mansell is expected to move up to Formula 2 next year.
Whether that will see him remain with ART or switch to a rival is less clear; a decision that will only reveal itself after countless discussions behind closed doors.
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