Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: And welcome to hala's Playbook. This is the very first podcast that I've ever done actually, so looking forward to it very much. I'm speaking to you from the Cape and delighted to welcome Dino Zamparelli, my very first guest from sunny Bristol where I think the there's probably a 25 degree temperature shift because I'm in mid winter, hence I'm a bit togged up and got my Bath rubber colors on because obviously Bath have gone and won three cups this year. But before we start, I'd like to thank our sponsors, Mass Group.
Mass Group, one of the fastest growing companies in the UK right now. Based in financial services, fintech Fintech and offering multi asset solutions across various asset classes. Currency Digital World, providing liquidity and looking to grow its business significantly and very, very pleased and proud to be involved with Mass Group at this point in their growth cycle.
So what are we about on hala's Playbook? This will be a weekly event, hopefully bringing interesting thoughts to you, primarily driven by the crossovers in business world, sporting world and occasionally wine, as you'll find out, because I do run a wine company which has a pure sporting connection.
So those are the broad topics we're going to be running through. I'll just say a couple of things for those who may not know.
I spend most of my career in investment banking at stock stockbroking across some very interesting periods of time at UBS and dlj. Have to admit to being at Lehman Brothers.
My mum's bridge partners still blame me for the financial crisis and why their pensions don't look so good. But I keep saying it wasn't really my fault. But that was an amazing period of time to be in the financial crash that you all remember.
So three decades in that world and I was also fortunate enough to play rugby at the highest level and first class cricket as well. So I kind of. That combination of sport and business has always sat well with me. Of course in the amateur world we didn't mind having a pint of beer or a glass of wine. So all of that kind of falls into it. So that's me in a nutshell. And we're going to investigate today with Dino, who I'm going to introduce and ask him to say a little bit about himself.
How we deal with pressure and key moments in sport and leading into business. And there's something really special about our first guest and what he went through. But before we do that, I'm just going to ask Dino to say hi and he comes from the racing world, a top racing driver. And I'll say your dad was also a Formula one powerboat World championship racer. So it kind of is in the blood. But over to you, Dino, tell us a little bit about you and how your kind of motor racing career unfolded.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Hi, Simon, thank you. Thank you very much for that. Yeah, I've, I'm. My name is Dino, of course. I, I've been racing for maybe the last 17, 18 years.
I started when I was around about 10 years old in a go kart, as most of the Formula one drivers do, or most any drivers in, in the top level would start in go karting and then kind of move my way up through the ladder and went into single seaters and got as far as testing a Formula 2 car. So one step below F1, you would say, but raced for two years in Formula 3 and then moved over to sports car racing in the Porsche Carrera cup, which is one make series of Porsche 992 Carrera cup cars. I did that for a fair few years and then just before COVID switched over to the business side of motorsport, which means, yeah, helping guys and being a coach and kind of giving back into the sort of industry, everything that I learned over the last 15 to 17 years.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Well, that's a great intro. Thank you. And there's something in us all, isn't there, about just wanting to get behind a wheel and just drive a bit quicker without being picked up by the police so you can get on a racetrack and, and do what you really wanted to do. But I think when you look at the world in which we, any world you live in that split second, decisions under pressure are sometimes what defines us. And I can certainly remember wishing I'd passed the ball when the guy outside me was going to score the try and I decided not to got tackled. And of course they play the videos afterwards and ask you, you know, it's called a murder by video where you know how you missed all those opportunities or indeed, you know, in the trading world, you know, if you press the wrong button or you, you, you make the wrong decision, you can lose significant amounts of money. So I.
High degrees of pressure be applied and you make decisions that obviously means even more so in your sport. I presume one mistake can make all the difference.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the obvious thing versus a ball sport, let's say football, cricket, rugby, et cetera, is the motorsports. You're traveling at speed, so you have to react really quickly, otherwise you'll be in a barrier, in a wall.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: So making Instant decisions under pressure applies to the world of business and sport. And we're going to show you a clip now, which is where that applies even more so in motor racing. And then I'm sure Dino coming behind that and tell us what really happened. Let's have a look at it.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. So, yeah, well, this is a clip of me at circuit and it was quite wet as you can see, there's not much vision.
This was 2012, so 13 odd years ago and I just remember not seeing an awful lot. There's a lot of spray and then you'll see now there's a car just ahead of me that's stopped and I, yeah, it's. Every time I watch that it reminds me how close I could have, or what could have been, I suppose it was. I just remember seeing the, the red light appear out of nowhere. And just before that I sort of raised my hand in the cockpit like, wow, I can't see anything. And then I just sort of suddenly saw that red line and obviously I was like, I didn't even think, there was no sort of stopping and thinking. I just turned the wheel left and then before I know it I was like, oh, I'm going left, let's go back right on the grass straight. And yeah, it was all in the moment reacting. And I guess you could say the training that I was doing at the time, my reaction skills and all that sort of stuff helped for sure.
But it was a lot of good fortune mixed with some good skill and reactions and avoided disaster as you saw. Could have been a massive pile up.
But yeah, so I posted on YouTube and then it went viral and the first was a lot of, lot of attention at the time and, and even now still people send it to me and some people even talk to me about, oh, have you seen that clip? And I'm like, it was, it was me in the clip. They didn't even know it's me because obviously I've got my helmet on. So, yeah, it's quite a funny, funny story to tell and it's quite a cool moment. It could have been a bad moment, but it's now a cool moment I can look back on as, as a good talking point.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah, so, I mean you got 1.6 million views on this so heavily watched episode and you're only 19 years old at the time. So at that point, I mean, how much of this was just pure reaction versus sort of training? Do you actually do?
Because I guess racing in the wet, you've always got that risk, haven't you?
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah, in the wet, in the dry as well. So drivers are always having to react.
It's an ever changing picture, as in most sports, I guess, but in motorsport, it. It was always changing the landscape. And so your race starts and your lap ones are always reacting to the guy ahead.
So I would say drivers certainly at the sharp end, have good reactions in general, you see it in Formula one when you just have to see how quick they can react to stuff. So I think I was 19 years old, I was young, I was fresh, I was ready to rock and roll. My reactions were obviously quick. A lot of it was instinct based, as I said, I didn't even think about it, I didn't reason with it, I just turned.
But yeah, at the time, you just kind of get used to it. And we did a lot of reaction tests and training, stuff like that. But I think in motorsport you get accustomed to having to react to a changing picture in front of you.
[00:08:50] Speaker B: And what speed were you going?
[00:08:53] Speaker A: It was around 140, 150 miles an hour.
So it was quick in the rain. And yeah, as I said, you just get used to the speed. And that sounds like a lot, you know, obviously very quick and it is in the rain, but at that inner cockpit in a single seater, you're just kind of used to it. And yeah, I remember, like I said, seeing the red light and thinking, this isn't good, right. And just reacted really quickly and instinct took over and unfortunately I got away with it. But you have to say that, you know, five times out of 10, maybe 50% of the time, that could have ended up in the back of that guy's car and a big smash. So it was one that I got away with, let's say. And I can obviously tell the story.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Now, it looked like you could have undertaken a few people actually in the midst. Did you actually gain a few spaces or not? What actually happened in the accident?
[00:09:44] Speaker A: I did. I gained about five spaces because they all had slowed down because there was an accident ahead. That's why they all congested up.
But there was a yellow flag at the time, so. So I had to give the places back.
The race got stopped anyway, so the result, because it was so wet, the race shouldn't have been even going on. So sadly, it wasn't a heroic story about going from seventh to the win, which would have made it nicer, but it was an illegal overtake in any case.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Okay, so in fact, you were avoiding an accident, but you still potentially have got whatever, shown a flag or something for doing that, right, yeah, exactly.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: It was a yellow flag that it just appeared, but it was so difficult to see that I came up the hill, didn't see the yellow flag.
And like I say, everyone slowing down in the rain on a straight line is a racing driver's worst nightmare because the spray suddenly dies and then you're there. Right. So it was just one of those perfect storms where there had just been another accident. The red. The yellow flags had just come out and then, like I say, everyone just kind of saw each other and I was the only one to come over. I think there's about five cars, so you imagine the first two or three can see each other, they slow down and suddenly the next two come and they go, oh, that was close. And then I've come across the hill and I've gone, there's nowhere to go. And I just went. I just went left, basically.
So, yeah.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Is that the closest you've ever come?
[00:11:13] Speaker A: I'd.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Obviously, it was amazing. It was on film. But is that the closest you've come?
Or have you. You've obviously, you know, crashing, I guess, is a part of the sport.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I've crashed a few times. Don't you worry about that. I crashed a few times. You have to in. In. In that game. It's a bit like being hit with rugby, I suppose. You, you know, you can't get away with it. You just can't. You. You're not going to be committed unless you feel what the limit of the car is and then go over it. So then next time you can say, oh, that was too far. And even when you think it's too far, another day the grip level will be slightly less and you think, oh, I can go back to that level where I think the limit is and you still crash.
So it's a real painful exercise at times, you know, because you sort of have to understand so many variables with the limit and understand why that happened, and there's so many factors that go into that. But, yeah, I've crashed a fair few times. Although, in the end, you know, you get good at knowing what the limit is. And part of my job now as a race coach is jumping into customer cars, setting some really good lap times. And of course, you know, part of the job description is not crash their car. So, you know, I'd like to say, thankfully, now I'm at a good place with learning where that limit is.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: I think it's fascinating to listen to you talk about, you know, knowing where your limit is and knowing that you almost have to crash to understand sort of a calmness about it. And I suppose if you know it's almost certainly going to happen at some point in your career, because by the law of averages, then you just. It's in your psyche that at some point you're going to either be hugely unfortunate or get it wrong.
But in both instances, you've got to learn from those, haven't you? And I guess that's the only way of learning.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah, they do say that you only learn from your mistakes. And obviously crashing would be a mistake.
Sometimes it can be your own mistake where you've just gone too far. Other times you could get collected or crashed into by someone else making a mistake. And you've got to try and take the emotion away with racing anyway, and certainly all sports, but with racing, take the emotion away, try and understand, dissect what you could have done better and go again. Those are always the best drivers because it happens so quickly that sometimes, you know, your.
Your decision in the moment might not be the correct decision, but that's part of the learning. You've got to come back quicker and stronger and take it away. So, yeah, it's not an easy sport to be on top of, but it's exhilarating. It's exciting when you. When you're going through a corner and you nail it. It's one of the best feelings you can have, I would say.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I can see that. I think it's interesting, the crossover. I was thinking, as you're talking about that, thinking correctly under pressure, which. Which Sir Clive Woodward called the Teacup because that's what he regarded as the critical element in. In rugby, where it's obviously a game of huge contact and a lot of stress at certain points. You're putting your body on the line and then you've got a moment where you've got to think correctly and you've got to make the right decision. And I look back to when we lost our World cup final in 91 against Australia.
And of course, the Lions are in Australia at the moment. Australia's always been very proud rugby nation.
And we made some poor decisions right at the moment when we needed to. We were the Grand Slam champions, so we were expecting to do well in the tournament. Got to the final on our own ground in front of a huge crowd, expecting us to win effectively in front of the Queen. I mean, you know, everything you think about, and we made some poor decisions and, you know, you can't bring that back. And I think, what. When England won the World cup, in 2003, they had people who make those right decisions under the pressure which went, that game went to extra time and Clive Woodward really started moving more into the business world to talk about how that success was earned through the understanding, know the limits.
People overplay at a time when they need to just bring other people in. So understanding what you're capable of being calm under pressure because you know you're going to make mistakes, you know you're going to drop a ball. I think, you know, BEN K drops it was a, an open run to the line. He dropped the ball and he's never, he's never been allowed to forget it. Obviously with humorous angle because we won in the end, but it took last second drop goal Johnny Wilkinson. So it's fascinating how all of these things cross over into the world of business as much as they do in sport. And those values, they come across very transferable. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about what you're doing now because individuals who are successful in their business world are largely the people who you might take on. Say, right, how do they come across? Is it just having a bit of fun behind the wheel or they're just trying to explore something that really tests them?
How do you kind of find their psychological thinking successful where they are in their world and they come onto a track completely fresh because it's not about driving a car down the road, is it something very, very difficult?
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's not. So a lot of my job right now, I mentioned my last few years of racing were in the Porsche series, sports car series, which is an attractive series for amateur drivers to join because a lot of amateur drivers will come from a Porsche road car and then jump onto a track with their Porsche and then they get excited and better and better and then eventually they go, well, actually I want to start racing these cars. And then they find there's a whole world of Porsche racing as there are, as there is with Ferrari and McLaren and stuff. So you find with these sort of, you know, high end sports cars, there's a, there's a racing series waiting for them on the other side. And so, yeah, my job right now is a lot of it is to do with coaching guys that are looking to enter from, from the business world, but also young guys. I've got a mix from someone starting out as a situation 16 year old right through to, you know, 60 year old just having fun and whatever the range is.
The job for me is to get in and understand what I can do to extract the maximum from them, which isn't easy because of course you're, you know, you're driving a race car a couple hundred mile an hour so the level of experience they've got is different and a lot of it is in the head. So a lot of it is a mindset thing. Thing. You know, you've got a 16 year old kid who's fearless, will go. If I say to him, go around that corner in fifth gear and don't break, they'll probably do it, just trust my word and do it. Whereas a 60 year old who's got a, maybe a family, a kid, you know, wife and kids at home, if I said don't break through that corner, no matter what they try, they just automatically lift. So I see that the fear as they get older, let's say, or not the fear, but the little barrier where they think.
They even say, I know I can go through quicker but my brain is just not quite letting me do it. So then you've got to break it down into chunks. Okay, well let's break at a later point and then let's try and half throttle, you know, all these little things to try and get round the just go flat. So it's interesting. I enjoy it. Obviously I've got a lot of experience so it allows me to jump in a car and be quick straight away for them and teach them what I was doing versus what what they're doing.
So that's the fun part of what I get to do and yeah, I enjoy it.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: So dealing with fear, it's.
I remember being asked many times, you know, what's it like running out in front of 75,000 people?
And how can you execute your, your club skills that you can do on a training pitch or a club game in front of a few thousand? Can you do that in front of 75,000? That, that will differentiate you from being top of the game or just not being able to hack it at the top level.
And I think I'm a question, is that all about fear? Because you know, one, don't worry about making a mistake because just succeed, you're going to have to look at mistakes.
And two, if you have a fear within you, you're unlikely to, to see the best of yourself and for other people to see the best of you. Because if you've got fear, you're going to underperform. You just are because you can't give full expression. And I suppose in the world of super speed, is fear the biggest hurdle that you, I mean you described it in the six year old, but also as a motor racing driver, top level.
Was it fear that you had to overcome going fast with the risks that involved or skill, A bit of both or.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: I don't think so. I think fear when you're young, 16 to 30, you don't consider it because you're jumping in a race car. So you know, there's a level of risk, you just crack on. Certainly from my experience, I wasn't fearful of myself in a race car or fearful of crashing or fearful of hurting myself. I would say fearful of mistakes, not so much because it's part of it. I think it's just a level of skill. At that level you are fine margin stuff. Really, really fine margin. And everyone is so good and so well drilled and obviously you're relying on a piece of machinery as well that, that comes into play that doesn't let you down and is quick and is well set up and all that sort of stuff.
But yeah, I would, you know, saying that the best drivers that I've come across have zero fear. So perhaps that is a contradiction in the sense that a lot of them just don't care, you know, when we break it down even further, do they care whether they die in a race car or not? Probably not the ones I'm thinking of. So perhaps you're right. This level of I don't care, I'm just going to be the best I can be is perhaps what makes the best racing driver and obviously a mixture of skill and super speed and everything else. So yeah, I think certainly with the, with the older you get, the more fearful, which makes them the jobs of sort of the current F1 drivers, Lewis Hamilton, Alonso are in their 40s, I think, still unbelievable that they can still really attack it and be in their 40s is, is and be as quick as they can. It's crazy.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: And what would you.
Yeah, that resonates very much. What, what message would you give to a young driver who's got an ambition to be the next Lewis Hamilton?
You know, how easy is it for somebody to live out that dream? Obviously you went through that, but someone sitting there listening to this, you know, who's a teenager and got that, got that yearning to do this, how, how would they go about it?
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it's not easy. There's only 20 seats in, in Formula One, in 8 billion people, right. So it's, it's a real, real tiny top of the tier level. There's obviously other things that you can do a lot of racing in America and a lot of racing in sports cars and Le Mans and there's some really cool stuff that you could become in the racing world.
But yeah, I think you're starting as I did in karting and hopefully you're good and you can build a career towards single seaters and impress the right people and so on. So it's not impossible. You've got to have a right management group behind you and obviously some, some, some backing financially because it's not, it's not a cheap sport.
You know, I know that tennis is, I read a lot about tennis players that have to fund themselves in the early days before they become break into the top 100 and that's not cheap. But in motorsport compared to tennis for example, is on, you know, steroids, it's 20x the money, maybe more, maybe 100x, I don't know. But it's a lot of money. So you need to have that initial 5 financial backing which is a shame, but I don't see it changing at any point because everything just costs so much money, you know, tires, fuel and so on. So a lot of what I did was sponsorship in terms of how I funded my career was through sponsors and getting people to back me in my career. And I did that really well and to good effect. And I almost treated it as a full time business in the end, which has stood me in good stead today because I'm able to get sponsors and help people as well. So it's a full time business generating funding for it, but it's good fun and the rewards are obviously high. So I would say that's my advice. Just, you know, even when you think you're down, just keep going forward because it's an exciting sport.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: I mean you touched on the real critical pieces these days of the, of the business of sport, the need. I mean in the rugby world, of course, the lack of finance within the sport is hurting it and there are increasing moves to create franchises to generate certain sustainability and you know, the model of the US where you know, the NFL and other sports, you know, have that characteristic and attract massive valuations but never losing sight of the core of why people play sport. And I guess it's the same in your sport that you still want the best drivers to get to the top, but the best drivers then need the help, don't they? They need the, as you say, the sponsorship, the financial backing, good fortune to find someone who's prepared to see what talents you have and see it through to the end.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: End.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: I mean that's a parallel in all walks of life that you can be as talented as you like, but you need luck, you know, you need to. Okay, as you say, you're going to have to have the old crash or two to kind of create the learning, but hopefully not too serious. Similarly, in other sports like rugby and others, you accept injuries past the territory.
You accept you may not get selected, you accept that you may think you're one of the best and nobody actually recognizes you for that until such time as something else happens.
And I think for both of us going to the top of the sport, we all know it's fickle, don't we? And you have to have real resilience to be able to deal with the adversity that you come through.
And for me that a way marks people out and I guess you would not have been able to, to race for as many years as you did unless you had all those qualities.
And for me, I, I marvel at people within your sport just because I think I would be incredibly fearful. I'm the guy put the brake on getting around the corner.
But it feels to me now that that ambition to just go to the top if you're the best is also married with that need for the business acumen to take you there and keep you there.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you're doing both. You really are having to work. It's no good just being super quick anymore and just being a kind of Kimi Raikan and where, you know, you'll find a lot of F1 drivers now they're, they've got everything, you know, they understand how to talk to the media, they understand social media themselves and how to appeal to the mass fans. And it's not just a good, it's not good enough to be zero personality and good in a race car that just doesn't, won't get you there. So, you know, it's changed for sure in motorsport and you've got to be, appeal to everyone and be fast and be likable and everything like that, which is true in most sports because as you said, funding is the core of everything in all sports. So being able to get people to buy into you, whether that's sponsors, corporate businesses or fans, it's a real skill because all most people want to do is just play the sport and play it well and focus on that. But sadly that's no longer the case. I think you've got to be able to understand a bit more around it. So yeah, it's not easy for sure.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Well, I think on that note it's a great Way to perhaps call time on the very first podcast of Haller's Playbook. And you know, Dino, thank you for those insights. I think takes us into a world very few of us know much about.
That video is truly terrifying. And congratulations on not just avoiding the crash, but jumping five places at the same time. Even if it was illegal, I think I'd have taken that outcome any day of the week.
I think, you know, it's fascinating what you say about, you know, the need to be, you know, business savvy around all of this sport these days. And that's certainly happening whatever sport you're looking at and, but, but the transferable values of sport into the world of business and back again are what we increasingly see. And it's actually living that, making it real that that will set people out.
And so look, I just remains for me to say thank you, Dino. Good luck with all the, all the work you're doing in bringing your sport to the average person and also to the, to the youngsters that they can live their dream the way that you did. And certainly I hope in all sport people get that chance to go to the top if they dream hard enough and they believe in themselves enough. So I think that's a great place to finish. And here from some slightly frosty Cape Town where it's mid winter, to extremely warm west country, obviously, being a West country man myself, you know, got the affinity. Although Bristol and Bath, I know, is this wonderful rivalry between the two.
I know you're a Bristol man, but it's only 10 miles to bath and it's a very pretty city. So I encourage you to go visit and go and watch the rugby boys over there at some point. But I'll just say cheerio from both of us. Thank you for tuning in and look forward to seeing you at the next edition of the Hallers Playbook.
Thanks very much indeed.
Thanks, Dino.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Thank you.
