HOW OCON'S PERFORMANCE COACH HELPS THE HAAS RACER MAXIMISE HIS POTENTIAL
Phillip Horton delves into the lives of those who work closely with the stars of F1 with Tom Clark, Performance Coach of Haas driver Esteban Ocon
Modern Formula 1 teams are huge companies with hundreds of employees all working hard to try to be the best in the sport. But within these vast organisations there are the teams within a team – the small cadre of people centred around helping each driver perform at their maximum.
You rarely see a Formula 1 driver walking completely alone in a paddock. They are usually flanked by members of the team – perhaps a comms/PR person – a manager, or athletic-looking figures whose job it is to keep them trim and in check.
Tom Clark explains his role in the F1 driver bubble: “A friend of mine talks about our role as an adult au pair. It’s quite a good description! My official title is Performance Coach, and it’s a multifaceted role – everything from training, to nutrition, psychology, sleep, and everything in between,"
“We might pull in certain people or specialists to help supplement what we do, but we are effectively the centre of performance for a driver, with the goal being to help them perform to the best of their abilities.”
Clark undertook a sports science degree and masters at university – and briefly worked in boxing, football and golf – but has spent most of his career in motorsport. Ahead of the 2021 season, he was approached to work with Ocon.
“We had 2020 behind closed doors [because of the COVID pandemic], and I was working in F2 and F3,” Clark explains. “When I started with Esteban, it was obviously difficult to travel. We had that long pre-season period and I went out to him in France and spent about six weeks with him solid.
“It was kind of like going from ‘don't know you’, to the end of the six weeks, ‘I’ve got a pretty good damn understanding of what you're like as a character!’ It was a big thing, for him as well, because you do have to get on, and you don't have any guarantees of that before you start.
“What you notice immediately with Esteban is he’s just such a normal, nice person that you feel like you come from a similar neck of the woods. You just have a very common understanding of the way the world works.
“He realises he's in this phenomenally fortunate position of being one of the very few Formula 1 drivers, has an amazing work ethic, and takes everything outside of the driving very, very seriously. Immediately we got on really well, and then we were straight into a Formula 1 season, where you spend even more time together. I wouldn't be here four years later if we didn't get on really well.”
There is nevertheless an awareness that while that social aspect is essential, the ultimate reason for Clark’s presence – and Ocon’s life – is to maximise the Frenchman’s potential.
"My official title is Performance Coach, and it’s a multifaceted role – everything from training, to nutrition, psychology, sleep, and everything in between."
TOM CLARK
“You spend so much time with each other that you've got to always keep the professional boundaries of ‘I'm fundamentally here to help you perform better’,” Clark says.
“We are good friends, but also we have to tread that line where he needs to know that if he's not happy with something, or we want to improve something, I need to know he's going to tell me, and he's not afraid of my opinion or upsetting me.
"At the same time he needs to know that I'm always going to be straight with him, because what is fundamentally the most important thing is him being able to perform to the best of his abilities.”
Ocon’s receptiveness to ideas and personal evolution was also a boon for Clark. “By the time I started working with Esteban, he'd been in F1 for four seasons, so he knew what he needs and wants,” Clark says. “That can be good, and bad, because it can be difficult to come in and maybe change wholesale behaviours
“But what was so great working with him was when I started with him, he was very open to the idea of ‘what can we do better?’ That’s a really fortunate position to be in as a coach, because you've got a lot of different directions that you can go in.”
'FORMULA 1 IS UNIQUE COMPARED TO OTHER SPORTS'
One of the challenges Formula 1 performance coaches face is not just readying their drivers for the rigours of a season – and then maintaining that level – but to do so without the benefit of active competition.
“Formula 1 is unique compared to other sports, as we are fundamentally starved of the opportunity to practice our sport, so you can't just jump in a car and use that as your training,” Clark says. “That presents a problem, but it also presents opportunity, as there’s lots of ways you can train an F1 driver.
“If they don't like running you don't have to run. If they don't like cycling you don't have to cycle. There are certain key themes that you need: you need to be able to do some form of cardiovascular training, you need to be in the gym and generally embracing strength training, but there are a lot of different ways you can achieve that.”
The nature of Formula 1 also enhances the breadth of work required for a performance coach, though conversely the closeness of the paddock adds a layer of camaraderie.
“Formula 1 is unique compared to other sports, as we are fundamentally starved of the opportunity to practice, so you can't just jump in a car and use that as your training.”
TOM CLARK
“If you consider a football team, you've got maybe upwards of 30 people in the performance staff, but you can't do that in Formula 1 because of the logistical element,” Clark says. “You're having to be quite a lot of things for the athlete.
“There's also just 20 coaches, and a lot of the drivers hang around with each other, so invariably you play sport together, or sometimes you do things outside of the circuit. We do rely on each other for support in lots of different capacities.
“Of course, just like with everything in F1, there's that data secrecy component, so we all are trying to help our drivers and respective teams to beat the others! But generally it's a case of, we can all help each other to generally make everything better for the drivers in the sport as well. There's that community element to it, definitely.”
Among the biggest elements of Formula 1 is travel, with 24 Grands Prix, including far-flung locations. Formula 1’s 2025 season opened with five Grands Prix in six weekends, in Australia, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East, while later in the year there are lengthy trips to the Americas, across a flurry of time zones, as well as the likes of Singapore’s night race.
“You're dealing with a human being, and you're dealing with a human being who has the same needs as the rest of us,” Clark explains. “Everyone likes to be at home, but we recognise that with the significant travel demands that we have, we need to optimise the race weekends.
"Jet lag and sleep are areas I’m particularly passionate about, and Esteban is the kind of person that has bought into strategies and sees the value in them.
“When you've got races, starting with Australia, going to China, then you have a week off, then you go to Japan and then the Middle East, there's an argument that you just don't come home at all. You would stay more aligned to those time zones and you would cut down on some of the flying.
“But you need to balance that with the real world element – everyone needs to see their families, have quality time at home, and get a break from the sport as well. That's some of the balance as well, if you just keep going you're maybe not getting yourself in a headspace where you can truly switch off.”
Clark’s interest in jet lag and sleep means he has run several evaluations on Ocon and determined that his chronotype – the natural disposition towards a time of day – is an evening person, who also has a high-sleep need.
"Jet lag and sleep are areas I’m particularly passionate about, and Esteban is the kind of person that has bought into strategies and sees the value in them."
TOM CLARK
“We see every sort of marker of his physiology is worse on less sleep,” Clark says. “We've had a lot of testing done on that, and he does need just generally more sleep. On race weekends, it would not be uncommon for him to get 10 to 11 hours sleep most nights because of everything that F1 throws at the drivers now.
“It's not just the physical stress, it's the sort of emotional rollercoaster that you go on throughout the weekend. That’s not laziness, as there’s a stigma associated with late sleepers, it’s just his rhythm.”
That came to the fore in Brazil last year, when Qualifying was postponed from Saturday afternoon to very early Sunday morning. Clark and Ocon left Interlagos almost as soon as the delay was confirmed, avoiding the area’s notoriously bad traffic, to maximise rest time at the hotel. Ocon went on to take a podium in Sunday’s chaotic race, and while Clark plays down the direct correlation, there is a gain to having strategies, and using experience.
“With Esteban being an evening type person, we have to take more of an awareness towards races like China and Japan, which are easterly travel races,” Clark says. “When you travel east, generally there is a need to go to bed early and wake up earlier. That's fighting against his natural propensity of wanting to sleep slightly later.”
That means building more days into adapting rhythms, getting the right times for light exposure, and trying to move the internal clock as best as possible.
“By contrast, he finds the Americas and those westward travel journeys much easier, so with that knowledge we just leave earlier for those eastward races, we get there earlier and we'll start our adjustment earlier as well.”
A driver can maximise sleep techniques, try and master jet lag, and profit from training methods, but Clark is in agreement that avoiding setbacks is one of the biggest tasks – and potential pitfalls.
“The greatest asset we can bring in reality is availability,” Clark says. “That’s making sure they're available to perform for all 24 races throughout the year, and feel as good as possible during that.
“So things like avoiding colds, flus, food poisoning are all probably some of the highest things on our priority list. There are a range of nutritional and supplemental products that we can use to bolster that, particularly during travel, and then certain easy things like with food poisoning, we only use tried and tested restaurants.
“Then just really good personal hygiene, so both of us will have anti-bac on us. Long gone are the Covid days, now everyone's returned to hugs, kisses and handshakes! So it’s just trying to control what we can.”
They may well be ‘adult au pairs’ and often seen in the background on the grid carrying a helmet bag, a towel or an umbrella, but a performance coach is a crucial part of a driver’s ‘bubble’ throughout the season, and their entire career.
