Oliver Gray: My Ultimate Driver

15 August 2023

Rodin Carlin’s Oliver Gray is the latest driver to delve into what characteristics make up his version of the ultimate racer.

Choosing some of Formula 1’s current stars and two legends of the sport, the Williams Academy junior focuses on building an all-arounder, with a focus on pure racecraft and finding the limit as he aims to do so.

INTELLIGENCE

“I’d pick Michael Schumacher because you could see his depth of understanding of the car, what he needed to do with the car and what he needed from the car was incredible when he was in his prime and I think that's what led him to be so successful. It's so hard because you never know what he was actually like. You never really see everything behind the scenes, but you can just see his professionalism on track and when he arrives at the track. You don’t always see what he does outside, but you can see that he was very professional, very intelligent in the way he went about things and very scientific in a way.”

DRIVING IN THE WET/DRY

“I think you’ve got to pick Max Verstappen at the moment just because of how dominant he is in both conditions. For example, in Austria pulling a 10-15 second gap in a Sprint Race. Then also when he first joined Formula 1 back in 2015 and when he brought it to the Mercedes boys in the wet in Brazil, I think that’s just an incredible feat.”

QUALIFYING

“Again, I’ve got to go for Max. Obviously, I’m a bit biased because I haven’t really seen things from the past. You can see how hard he pushes the car to the limit at every single point. Even in FP1, you see him push everything to the absolute limit. I think that's what you need from an F1 driver or a racing driver in general, especially in single-seaters where you have a limited track time and lots of tyre wear. You see him push from the get-go and I think that's what is so incredible about him.”

CORNERING

“As we saw this year so far, definitely in Austria, Zhou Guanyu was the one that kept it clean throughout the whole 71 lap race, which is easier said than done. You see all the F1 drivers at the top of their game and they’re still getting loads of penalties throughout the race, I had a few track limits over the weekend, but I think he did a great job to keep it within the white lines.”

TYRE MANAGEMENT

“Alex Albon – I think you’ve seen in the last couple of years how good he is with the tyres. In Canada and Australia last year, nursing hard tyres for 50 laps is a pretty incredible feat. I think you’ve got to be so careful and so patient with them to do that and probably right now, I haven't got the capability to do so. I think that’s something I'm going to have to learn as I go up the ranks.”

BRAVERY

“Risk taking has got to be (Ayrton) Senna. I think if you look at his onboard from Monaco back in the day you can see how on the limit he is around there, especially in one those cars at the time given the safety procedures they didn’t really have was incredible and how hard he pushed the cars to the limit everywhere.”

OVERTAKING

“I’m going to have to go for Max for this as well. You’ve seen him in the past couple of years do so many outrageous overtakes, be unreal on the brakes and just be creative with overtaking. I think even when his car hasn’t been the best, it’s quite incredible to see and I think he’s just going to keep striving, being better and better and just being Max.”

SMOOTH OR AGGRESSIVE

“More aggressive, I think that’s the way forward. You can always turn it back a little bit, but sometimes it's harder to find the limit of being aggressive. If you go over, then you can always come back a little bit. I’d say I was more aggressive. I’d say that’s the way with a series like this, when you get such limited time, you want to be over the limit and then you can pull it back. When you’re below, you’re sort of playing catch up for the whole weekend, so that's the main aim for the start of the weekend.”

ANYTHING ELSE?

“I think one of the things is just racecraft in general. You’ve got to have good racecraft, especially when you get to Formula 1. If you don’t have the best Qualifying, then you need to be able to overtake and be creative with stuff like that. I think Max seems to be the best at that at the moment.”