Amaury Cordeel: My greatest influences

Van Amersfoort Racing's Amaury Cordeel is the latest of the 2022 Formula 2 grid to give us the rundown on who has inspired, motivated and supported him in his career.

The Belgian driver recalls those on and off the track who have helped him throughout his motorsport journey.

FATHER

“I think for sure, my father helped me a lot just to support me and to be fully behind me. Also, financially he had to support me in the first year because sponsors weren’t there until a higher level. The first few years you have to do it on your own. My father supported me emotionally when it went wrong too. When you have a bad race, your family is always there for you and support you mentally and I think that's a good thing to have."

KARTING OWNER

“My brother had a karting party, and we went to this indoor karting place. We pushed each other until we were faster than our father. The owner of the karting place pushed us to do some more higher level stuff, like to do a competition karting event. I tested a lot with my brother in karts and then we started to do some old Formula Renault. Of course, we wanted to do it on our own but the manager pushed us into the higher levels, he proposed it to my father and pushed us to do more and more and more."

PHYSIO

“Gio, my physio, he always goes to the races with me, to support me and help with a couple of things. Actually he used to work for the karting owner. He was there since we started to do some formula racing. The relationship kept going better and better. First he was helping my brother, because he was a couple years older, and then it was with me. It was getting better and better. and the owner of the coaching was quite old, so Gio took it over and then he went to the races with us. I think I was 13 years old when I first met him, so he’s been with me for six years already.”

ENGINEERS

"The engineers, I think that's quite a clear thing that they help you with racing and they help you to get the points that are wrong. It’s the same with every racing driver. I think it's so important to have a good relationship with your engineers. I think it’s helped me a lot because I was a very shy guy in the past within the team, but then kept getting better and better over the years. One guy in Renault helped me a lot because he was quite aggressive as an engineer. When I did something wrong, he said ‘Yeah, this is wrong.’ If I said something about it, he said, ‘No, you're gonna do that.’ So he helped a lot with it. And then by doing that, I also got a better relationship with him. I understood that it's important to have a good relationship with them and to listen to your engineer.”