dpWith the Whisper TV production company he co-founded thriving across Formula 1 coverage and beyond, David Coulthard has created one of the most impressive post-racing business careers of the drivers from his F1 era.
And he says it’s F1’s focus on fixing weaknesses that set him up for that success.
Speaking at The Race x Axios event in Monaco, in collaboration with Red Bull and Carlyle, Coulthard revealed that the lack of an F1-style analytical debrief in his early television appearances with the BBC lit a fuse for how he could do things differently if he went into the production industry.
“We’d done all the pre-briefs and all the things I was used to,” Coulthard recalled of his BBC F1 debut at the start of the 2009 season, “but in Formula 1 the debriefs arguably are more important because that’s where you see where you got it right but, more importantly, where you got it wrong.
“Because that’s your biggest source of potential is where you got it wrong. And sport teaches you every week that you get something wrong.
“Even in success, there’s something that wasn’t quite right. So we did the broadcast and I went back to the TV compound and I said, ‘when are we doing the team debrief?’ And the lead person said, ‘no, we don’t do that’.
“And my heart sank, having grown up my whole life within a team and sharing the good and the bad and really understanding not what really we’ve done well, because that’s what we’re supposed to do. And I’m like, ‘is this really how television is?’ I thought ‘the BBC, you know, world renowned, they must be across every detail’. And they weren’t.
“So that struck a little spark in my mind. And over the next year, I figured out who are the good people within the BBC and identified two guys particularly. And I went to them and said, ‘if I fund the start-up, will you come and come and work?’ And I said, ‘our goal is we’ll produce Formula 1 television one day’.
“They believed in it, somehow they saw that I had some sort of vision – and I had no clue about television other than being a commentator. Anyway, we started Whisper. And seven years later, we signed to do Channel 4 broadcast for Formula 1.
“And today we do Formula 1, we do Formula E, we’re doing Roland Garros, we do the entire host broadcast for Wimbledon, SailGP, and cricket. We’re across so many different sports, we have 300 permanent staff.
“And we’ve grown out of my need and my passion to be part of teams with an attitude of ‘what can we do better?’ Not an attitude of ‘you’re great, you’re great’.
“Of course, you want to work with great people. But as human beings, we don’t always get it right. And I don’t have a problem not getting it right.
“That gives me an opportunity to be even better. And that was the sort of catalyst of where Whisper came from.”
The hotel adventure
Even while still in F1, Coulthard became co-owner of the Monaco hotel that became the Columbus during his 10-year tenure.
“I’d been living here for several years and I didn’t really have a purpose in Monaco, other than it was my home and the grand prix was here once a year. And I just had that need to have something here that I could be part of, that I could influence,” he explained.
“So I bought a hotel with some partners in Fontvieille. And it was a brilliant 10-year experience.”
His attitude of ‘how can I make this better?’ was evident in that endeavour as well – as he tried to correct the customer experience mistakes he’d seen at hotels while travelling for his career.
“You turn up at a hotel and they kind of act surprised that you’ve arrived,” he said. “It just takes too long and it’s just not a great guest experience.
“So anyway, I bought a hotel and got involved for 10 years and annoyed people by the attention to detail and sold it and made a little bit of money. Actually, I made a lot of money, but I’m Scottish and therefore modest…”
