Ten competencies
Nine core competencies from airline training, plus a suggested tenth for threat and error management, each broken into observable behaviours.
Free-Force Performance
Competency = Performance + Safety
Airline evidence-based training, adapted for motorsport. A structured way to observe, grade and develop the skills that decide a race beyond raw speed, starting with drivers and extending to the whole team, from Formula 1 to driver academies.
The challenge
Lap times and results show what happened, not why. The skills that decide a race beyond raw speed, such as awareness, decision making, communication and workload, are usually judged informally and described in different words by different people.
The idea
Airline pilots are trained and assessed against a fixed set of competencies, each broken into behaviours that an assessor can observe and grade from evidence. The same approach has been used in surgery to reduce errors. Free-Force Performance adapts it for motorsport: drivers first, then pit crews, then the whole team, to improve safety as well as performance.
Two-minute introduction
In motorsport, as in a fast jet, time is always critical
Both depend on highly trained professionals performing under pressure, where small errors have large consequences and teamwork and training decide the outcome.
The introduction uses Formula 1 as its example; the same approach applies across motorsport. Voiceover, so please turn the sound on. Hosted by Vimeo, it loads only when you press play.
How it works
A proven structure from aviation, applied to the evidence a motorsport team already holds.
Graded from evidence
Each behaviour is graded 1 to 5 from telemetry, team radio, onboard video and debriefs, by trained assessors.
Clear development targets
A profile for each team member, specific targets, and one shared language for drivers, coaches, engineers and management.
Who it is for
The skills are the same wherever people race under pressure. The framework adapts to the series, the team and the people in it.
Formula 1 and top-level teams
Drivers, race engineers, pit crews and the operations room, with worked cases from recent Grands Prix.
Junior single-seaters and academies
A development record from a driver's first season, so progress is measured in behaviours as well as results.
Multi-driver crews
Shared cars and driver changes: the handover is a teamwork and communication task, as on a flight deck.
Driver and co-driver
The closest thing in motorsport to a two-seat fast jet crew: one car, two roles, every decision shared.
Coaches and simulator centres
A shared language and grading for coaching programmes, in the simulator and on track.
Two seats, one crew
In military fast jets a single-seat pilot decides alone, while a two-seat crew shares the workload, the decisions, the credit and the responsibility. On race day the driver and race engineer are that crew, joined only by the radio. In rallying the co-driver sits alongside; in endurance racing drivers hand the car to each other. The same approach develops each role and the relationship between them.
Professionals engage with scores because they want to get better.
Who is behind it
Steve Freeman
- Experience
- 30+ years training and developing high-performance pilots, military and commercial
- Current role
- EBT simulator and line training captain, major UK airline
- Management
- Nine years as a base manager; responsible for safety, operational delivery and pilot welfare
- Standards
- Qualified Standards Assurance auditor
- Background
- Former military fast jet pilot and instructor
- Motorsport
- Porsche Club Championship, two seasons: 3rd overall, Class 2, 2018
Interested in a trial?
A 20-minute conversation is the best place to start. No commitment, and nothing to install.