Apr

28

I’ve been a professional racing driver from the age of 3, the first time I’ve been on a karting circuit driving, until 17 doing a formula 4 championship and I placed myself at the 3rd place in the international final race in karting at 15. Here’s what I learnt from that extremely competitive sport that may apply to trading, investing and I’d say to many other aspects of life:

1. You can’t perform well in all the track conditions and different weathers, you may suffer more with the hot weather and perform best with cold, or the opposite , the key is to survive and doing your best when conditions are not ideal, and maximize your performance when the conditions are in your favor.

2. Think astute and strategically, an important part of winning a race was being smart in the way you used your tires. You could only have one set of tires per race, so if you had a very qualification, during the manche (the fight after qualification which will give you a place on the grid of the final race) it was smart to preserve your tires and drive conservative in order to arrive at the final race, maybe even a couple of positions lower of where you could’ve been, but with better tires. In this way you’re going to be performing best at the last race, which is the only one that matters.

3. When I was 12, a retired legendary old man who was the karting principle of Ayrton Senna (he had like 100 t-shirts with still the sweat of ayrton, because senna when he was in Italy racing never changed t-shirt but just threw them away, but he never sold any as memory) called Ernesto, who’s not very well known online but he’s been a crucial person on Senna’s life, was impressed with my driving skills and decided to help me in winning the world championship when I was 12. He told me, as important rule, the importance of being patience. When I was 2nd, to not surpass the 1st guy, stalk him and make him go nervous , always right behind him , until it’s the right time. You’re going to be relaxed, keeping your engine fresh and when it’s the last 2 laps you surpass him. It very well applies to trading and investing I’d say.

4. Do not show your edge and your strong performance. When I was practicing during the weekend race, I’ve never showed when I was performing well. You need to keep the eyes away from you and make your competitors think you’re performing terrible or average. Then you surprise them on Sunday at the race day. It very well applies to fund managers I think.

5. Talent is not enough. You need to be talented, competitive , prepared and very well trained on track; but it’s as much important to be good at selling your talent to the right person, otherwise you won’t go nowhere. My goal was to become a f1 driver , and I’ve seen countless of people and friends getting extremely close , spending a fortune, and then getting nowhere. And then I’ve seen a guy, talented but not as many others, achieving this goal thanks to his ability to network his talent to the right person. In finance it’s the same I believe.

6. Luck. Luck played a very important role in racing , it was the little peace of the puzzle needed to end a perfect race. But after seeing it so many times, I can tell one thing for sure: luck favors the bold, so when you’ve the wind on your back push over your limits, because luck will drift in your favor.

7. Arrogance and humility. The true enemy of a man , I discovered not to be losing but to win and winning too much. That’s where the real strength is seen; not from how you handle losing.
Winning, especially winning streaks, will make you feel arrogant and superior to others, training and practicing less and underestimating your competitors. Always try to stay as much humble as you can because it was humility that made you winning and it’s the lack of humility that will destroy you.

8. Setups. Always change as many setups as you need until your performance improve if they’re bad and you don’t feel adapted to the current circuit conditions, but NEVER change a setup that it’s currently winning. I’ve often see setups working amazing, turning a race into a terrible performance trying to make a great setup a perfect one. When something it’s working, let it work and don’t interfere.

9. Edge. Don’t expect all your competitors to follow the rules, I’ve often seeing racers, maybe multibillionaires ones who could afford to cheat on an international event , doing little cheating maybe to the engine or to the kart itself to gain that very little edge to win a race. As my father used to told me when as young kid, it’s important to be morally on the right side and do what’s right doing the best we can having the best engine as possible at the limits of what’s allowed, but never a single step beyond. It won’t give you an edge today but it will give you an edge tomorrow.

10. Strategy. You need a strategy to perform, but the biggest wins are the ones that come from your intuition where you drive with your heart and soul and let your talent and preparation to the heavy lifting without rationalizing too much. It very well applies to trading, espeicially on volatile times.

11. Keep eyes open, around the paddock I often had my eyes very opened trying to understand what the fastest drivers were doing and which setups they had, not necessarily to copy them but to get a feeling on what’s working; in fact they were often trying to hide crucial parts of the setup, but still every little detail made a difference; in trading I think it’s important to do that.


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

1 Comment so far

  1. riccardo on April 30, 2025 4:39 am

    beautiful, well done!

Archives

Resources & Links

Search