Rob Wilson

IF CENTRAL CASTING were in need of an archetypal motor racing legend, they wouldn’t feel short-changed if Rob Wilson walked through the door. Lightly perma-tanned and never far from a packet of Rothmans, Wilson really does look like an extra from McQueen’s Le Mans. You can easily imagine him perched on a pile of tyres, race overalls tied around his waist, enjoying a smoke between drives. Which is precisely what he was doing when I last saw him at La Sarthe, 16 years ago.

But for the past 30 years, Wilson has become better known in the motorsport industry as arguably the world’s top driver coach. Half the current F1 crop is signed up to his training programme, as well as headline drivers from NASCAR, WRC, Sports Cars, Touring Cars and more. That they travel the world to spend time with him is testament to his ability to extract tenths from their lap times.

I meet up with Wilson at one of his favourite haunts: the Grey Goose in Leicestershire, close to the Bruntingthorpe proving ground where he was based until the track’s change of ownership forced him