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I've been wondering for quite a while now about the drivers' educational attainment. Who are the drivers with a college degree?
Where and what did they study?

I know that drivers started racing when they were very young. How did their careers affect their schooling?

I know that petrov didnt start racing when he was young, and he was enrolled in the University of Moscow studying meteorology

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Most leave school at 15/16 to pursue their careers. Rosberg got a place at Oxford (I think) to study Aerodynamics but turned it down in favour of F1.

Drivers like Button, Schumacher and Raikkonen all dropped out of education at 15. Alonso went to the Institute Leopoldo Alas Clarín of San Lazaro but dropped out to further his racing career. Perez was in Europe when he was 15 so he didn't do any further education. Di Resta did when Button/Schu/Kimi did, sounds like Webber did the same, Vettel passed the German equivelent to English A Levels before leaving school, much more than most of the grid it seems.

For most drivers racing gets in the way of school life, too much travelling and focus is taking away from their education and by 15 they have to choose which one they want to do. If they reach F1 it's pretty clear education took a back seat.

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1994 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

good info, looks like u are an insider to f1

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Marc Gené has one (Economics I think). I think Nigel Mansell has another one too (engineering? actually worked as an aerospacial engineer). There are some examples. Pedro de la Rosa started a degree but could not finish it, he's probably retaking it in the next years.

On a slight tangent, Romain Grosjean used to work part time in a bank

It's strange to imagine any of the current grid doing different jobs!

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[quote="Laura23"]Most leave school at 15/16 to pursue their careers. Rosberg got a place at Oxford (I think) to study Aerodynamics but turned it down in favour of F1.
/quote]

Imperial College it was, just before signing with ASM/ART to contest GP2.

Also Jonathon Palmer was a qualified doctor before racing, which is pretty cool.

Senna as well studied Economics.

If you think of the time commitment having a full time job as a racing driver requires, and the time commitment a good degree would require, I have to imagine that would make them mutually exclusive for most people to do at the same time.

If I was insanely rich, I'd just enroll to Uni and do degree after degree after degree though. But I really like to know how things work, and I think it would be fun.

There was a rally driver whose name totally escapes me at the minute did an Engineering degree. He got a job in M-Sport (Ford) for the work experience bit.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Jean-Pierre Jabouille is an Engineer, and he worked at Renault both as Engineer and driver. He drove cars that he projected. It's, as if Newey would drive. He had two victories, notably, first overall of turbo engines. He could have 10+ victories was it not for unreliable parts by Renault. Amazing guy.

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If he worked for Renault, and it was their parts that kept him from winning maybe he should have stuck to driving.

Prehistorically, three drivers who had degrees were Piero Taruffi (engineering), 1950 WDC Giuseppe Farina (economics), both of whose careers started in the early 1930s and went on to the mid-fifties, and Paul Frere (engineering).

The engineering qualifications of Taruffi and Frere, imo, did not make much difference to their driving or competitiveness. Maybe some engineering theory helped in car adjustments or set-up.

It seems to me that driving all depends on talent and feel for car-road and the enjoyment/need to be competitive. Fangio and Clark were not great on the technicalities of their cars; others of their peers knew more...

I have read that Nico Rosberg is very good on the tech side, including aero theory, which his race engineers say is very helpful.

Racing is far too professional now, standards too high, to do much else between early karting to F1, full-time.

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He wasn't the one manufacturing the parts by himself, of course. They were obviously working well, when made right and put right.

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The end is near

Lt Drebin is right: J-P Jabouille was probably the most succesful driver who was able to apply his engineering background to his driving. And right about J-P'sseveral potential wins, but for unreliability. Even Alan Jones praised Jabouille as "the guy who knew more about his cars than the rest of us".

Renault had to do all the exploratory work on turbos, overcome all the heat and other issues. AS wellas the ridicule and jokes from other teams and the media. Then Ferrari, BMW and others could swan in to KKK for thier now-developed, smaller, twin turbos, and benefit from Reault's knowledge of heat exchangers, intercoolers, etc.

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It'd be pretty rare to find an f1 driver with a degree these days. With teams and sponsors looking for the next big thing amongst the 13 year olds in karting, a 21yo with a degree is gonna struggle to get into any feeder series, unless of course he's loaded...

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Warning: The above post may contain sarcasm.

JPJ is one of my heroes because of this. Also,won the F2 title over Arnoux and Tambay so he wasn't average by any means...

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"We were carrying something like 250l of fuel, it was very heavy; waiting sometimes 3 seconds before the power came, and we had between 800-1200 hp. In the straights we had wheelspin at 5th or 6th gear sometimes..." -- Alain Prost.

Im sure i heard somewhere that Bourdais has a degree in engineering. One of you can check me on that tho

di Grassi studied economics and is a member of a high IQ party (wich I dont remember the name of it)

That is a beautiful view of that car. I wish more cars still had some of the engine exposed. I suppose they could put a clear plastic "viewing" panel over a portion of the engine today if they all weren't so paranoid about how their exhaust was run.

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do you mean menza

Probably not - but he might mean MENSA: http://www.mensa.org.uk/

These days I'm not sure that having a degree is necessarily an indication of education

I believe Marc Gene has a degree in economics from a British university.
It could be that he just studied there.

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Get your facts right first, then you can distort them as you please. Mark Twain.

I wonder why economics is popping up so many times? I have a degree in Economics, I wonder what the link between F1 and Economics is as its not the most popular degree out there.

Monica Lewinsky was a graduate at the time and took a few of my classes (student led ones) I could not look at her without thinking of Bill

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"I did not study economics with that woman".

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Get your facts right first, then you can distort them as you please. Mark Twain.

More like Ergomonics

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How to be comfortable while all your appendages are in the right place.

Meanwhile back on topic. It was at Buckingham University, near Silverstone, where he completed his degree.

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Get your facts right first, then you can distort them as you please. Mark Twain.

Of course it is. That's exactly the definition of education.
It may not be an indication of intelligence or competence, but having a degree is basically synonymous with having an education.

not really after all there are still those that fake their degree....

or copycat their doctor essays.... like someone called Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg ....

Getting a degree is not easy. You have to be intelligent, you have to be commited and you have to be consistent.

Not everyone who goes for a degree is well educated in their early years either, lots try the Open University. You can get a degree in England without having a single A Level if you apply yourself to your chosen degree properly.

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Very good thread Does anyone know if Alain Prost has a college degree etc?

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I don't know what else a degree could be an indication of, but one doesn't have to be intelligent to get a degree.

To concur with the last comment, I got my first degree without any A-levels and I'm now working towards my second having got A-level Maths as a mature student. I'm a member of Mensa but that doesn't help me to do academic/scholarly research. That's a different skill and comes more from hard work and application than intelligence.

I would assume Bruno has some kind of a degree. Given that he was only allowed to race very late and he comes from a wealthy family

I'm a bit confused on that, can you please tell me what's exactly the definition of Education?