Climbing mountains in search of excellence

I'd followed him for long enough. The time had come to pass Alex Wurz. Yes, Alex Wurz, the two-time Le Mans-winning former Formula 1 racer. And I was going to pass him. Fair and square.

And I did.

There are a couple of things I probably should mention at this point; cars were not involved, we were on foot. But Wurz is still one of the most physically fit fellows in motorsport while I remain committed to Easter Eggs. So beating the year-younger-than-me Austrian was pretty impressive, yes?

Well, no.

When I said we were on foot, the singular was about right for Wurz. He was on one foot and two crutches. Seventy-two hours earlier he'd been on an operating table with a surgeon fiddling around inside his knee.

And now he was walking up a mountain. Just not as quickly as me.

I had joined Wurz on the latest expedition for the FIA Institute Young Driver Excellence Academy. We were in Chamonix, just below the top of Mont Blanc. Actually, we were quite a long way below the top of Mont Blanc, which is statistically the most dangerous mountain in the world to climb. Wurz talks from a position of authority, having climbed said big hill.

I talk from a position of no authority, having taken the cable car to my position in the foothills and no further.

Alex Wurz

Eleven of the FIA Institute Academy drivers were with us. American racer Alexander Rossi was absent due to racing commitments (which obviously worked give his Renault World Series win in Spain a week or so later).

The remaining 11 were reaching the end of their second five-day workshop. First time out had been in Edinburgh University - a classroom-based theoretical approach to the physics, psychology and physiology of driving faster than other people. But now, in the heart of the French Alps, that theory was being put firmly into practice.

Along with former World Rally champion co-driver Robert Reid, Wurz is one of the performance managers of the FIA's ground-breaking driver development scheme. As the 11 drivers set about their first task in France, a man in a white coat was assuring Wurz he wouldn't feel a thing some kilometres to the east. A day or so later, the same white coat told Wurz he wasn't allowed to fly to France to see his Institute scholars. So he didn't. He drove. Or at least, he got his mate to drive.

When Wurz walked into the wooden-walled Alpine conference room where the 11 drivers were working away, there was an appreciation of not only the effort he'd made to get to them, but also of the bloke himself.

The drivers crowded around, wanting to hear the news of his latest Le Mans test with Peugeot. Then there were questions about which roll bar settings work best at Ricard. The questions didn't stop coming. And the answers were given maximum attention. Wurz is no preacher, no Billy Graham, he's more like their favourite teacher at school. You remember, the cool one who didn't have to try and be matey to try and be matey. He was the teacher who, in my day, really did like Simple Minds and really had played as number eight for the England Schools.

Hugh Richards is a sports psychologist from Edinburgh University, one of the top men in his field. Or, in the mountain. Richards knows what makes sports men and women do what they do and he can explain the science of it to them. He can make them think themselves quicker. But when Wurz is around, Richards takes a step back and admires from a far.

"Alex really gives the message credibility," Richards says. "Alex knows what we're working on and the importance of what we're doing here, he knows that because he has lived it for so long. And we can tell the guys about that, but when people like Alex and Robert come in, tell them about it and then show them how it works, you can see they're taking this past the science and reason we offer."

Finding driver excellence is a challenge

And Wurz timed his arrival to perfection. The culmination of the drivers' time in the Alps is Trophee Chamonix. This is a race up the 2,000 metres of the Prarion Mountain (which looked lovely from the cable car), a spot of orienteering around the summit and finally a race to build a stretcher and evacuate a casualty while wearing snowshoes across some very soft spring snow.

Fortunately, I was there in a spectating capacity. But I was still handed a pair of snowshoes to strap to my Timberlands - a process which made Wurz's keyhole surgery sound entirely simple. Have you ever tried snowshoeing? No? Then don't. It serves no real purpose. Why walk when we could have been skiing? As far as I could see, the snowshoe is to getting around on snow what the Sinclair C5 was to vehicular transport. I didn't like them. They kept falling off and I kept sinking. Then I got wet.

Upon seeing my sodden trouser leg, an amused Reid observed: "Oh, you found the stream as well, then..."

Stream? Stream! How on earth was I supposed to know there was a stream buried beneath the snow? As far as I was concerned, it was all white.

My mood was lifted slightly by the discovery of two baguettes in my rucksack. Brian Cameron, the man who had dreamed up this whole walking-on-snow-to-make-the-drivers-go-faster thing, was even forgiven when he agreed to trade his ham for my cheese sandwich.

Everything in my world was rosey again. The sun was shining, I was looking up at Mont Blanc and I was eating. Perfect.

The same could not be said for the drivers. Some of them looked like they'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. Except there weren't any hedges on this mountain. They had been paired up for this final challenge and after some serious strategic planning, they started burning the calories with some lung-busting thigh-burning running.

It was a hugely impressive display. Joking aside, I remain a fiercely competitive person, but I had nothing on those boys. Israeli Alon Day had never seen snow before and admitted he panicked slightly when he felt his fingers beginning to freeze up the mountain. He'd never felt that before, but he knew it wasn't good. Then there was Albert Costa, who sliced his fingers open with rope burns, but kept on going, unwilling to let his team-mate down.

Timmy Hansen and Albert Costa

Suddenly, the lessons were everywhere. The learning had come alive. The drivers trusted each other on the mountain in the same way drivers and co-drivers do in a rally car. And, through the ice climbing they'd done, they had realised planning their attack at a rock face was just the same as planning their attack at the first lap of a race or kilometre of a stage. And when Isabelle Santoire, ice climbing guru and general mountain expert, went up the same rock face, the drivers were staggered at how composed, steady and slow she looked. They were even more surprised when they found out that what had taken them 12 minutes had taken her less than three. They had the strength, she had the precision.

The most graphic display had, however, come from the first night in France. The drivers were given a task to do and an hour to do it. They had to scour Chamonix for bits and pieces to help them achieve their goal. They were all out of the hotel in no time, thrusting maps and planning sheets into pockets as they went. It was a disaster. They drivers were destroyed. They had failed to achieve on a catastrophic scale, which was probably a first for most of them. But, having taken them down to their lowest ebb, Cameron and his crew built them back up, wiser and more prepared. And faster.

And now, speed was everything. The final part of the challenge was to construct a stretcher from three wooden poles a few bits of rope and some sort of plastic sheet. It was then that I realised I was going to be more than a spectator. I was a casualty. I was a casualty to be rescued from the mountain via one of the team's stretchers.

Drivers trying to keep up © LAT

Any my rescuers were Kevin Abbring and Richie Stanaway. They weren't impressed. Having put their hand into the hat, they'd been hoping to draw out one of the superlight female options. But they'd ended up with me and my kilogrammes.

What happened was next doesn't reflect well on anybody. Firstly, in my defence, I have to say, if Abbring or Stanaway ever come to rescue you, play dead. Trust me, these boys are seriously good at driving cars and seriously rubbish at making stretchers.

Now, secondly, I'm not accusing the FIA of cutting corners or anything, but the wooden poles provided for this challenge were clearly not up to the task. They must have been made of bamboo or something. They certainly weren't journalist-lifting solid oak, that's for sure. And to think my rescuers had the temerity to blame me for snapping their shoddy equipment.

Unbelievable. Still, I like to look back and think everybody was laughing with me. And anyway, at least I beat Wurz to the top of the hill...