Teenage Marshall heads to Spain to chase F1 dream - TimesLIVE

It’s not merely speed that William Marshall finds so attractive about racing.

“It’s more than just speed; it’s about chasing something, basically,” he said.

The 15-year-old is chasing a dream that he hopes will soon see him racing against his Formula 1 hero Max Verstappen on famous race circuits around the world.

It’s on one of those racetracks, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, that Marshall takes the next step on a journey that may one day see him line up on the grid for an F1 race.

Born in Johannesburg, with Cape Town now his home, Marshall was selected as one of six young drivers for the Richard Mille Young Talent Academy Formula 4 Shootout.

The programme is the brainchild of Nicolas Todt, whose father, Jean, was famously Ferrari’s boss from 1994 to 2007, a period dominated by Michael Schumacher. Nicolas is also current Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc’s manager.

“It will be, like, really hard,” said Marshall shortly before boarding a flight to Spain on Friday. “I’ve been working on parts of it, so I’ll definitely be good at it.”

Wesley Orr, team principal of Worr Motorsport, will be chaperoning Marshall in Spain and believes the youngster has the skills to meet the demands of the shootout. “His talent is exceptional. Our job as a team is to back him and make sure we put him in the right place,” he said.

It’s not just his racing that will be tested, though. Marshall’s physical conditioning, mental resilience, racecraft, data perception and engineering communication will also be evaluated as he speeds around in an F4 car.

“He also has to be good off the track with the media. He has to be marketable for the brand. They don’t want a driver who can’t sell. This is still a business,” Orr said.

Marshall is certainly attuned to the seriousness of what is at stake. “It takes a lot of discipline every day. I drive every weekend, like a lot. I also do morning runs and I ‘gym’ in the afternoon,” he said.

For youngsters like Marshall, the path to a Formula 1 career is made even harder because most junior drivers at this level come from Europe, where testing infrastructure, coaching, and proximity to international circuits are built into the system. “He’s one of the few drivers from Africa to get the opportunity,” Orr said.

Marshall won the 2024 South African Junior Max National Championship and has numerous karting titles to his name.

With Orr’s assistance, he was set up with Ward Racing in Europe. “It’s tough. He’s been living in Europe for a while; he’s on a tight training regime. He has to be mentally fit, and because he is away from home, he has to be mentally strong. He has to be really, really aggressive on the racetrack to get the results.”

That latter quality helps explain why four-time F1 world champ Verstappen is Marshall’s favourite driver. “Max is nice to watch; it’s his mentality, and he’s an aggressive driver,” he said.

The racing bug bit when Marshall moved from Johannesburg to Cape Town, and a neighbour, who was also a classmate, took him to Killarney racetrack.

Besides Verstappen, Marshall has been inspired by watching old videos of the only South African to win the world title, Jody Scheckter. “I’ve heard about him, watched a few old videos and seen what he’s done, and that inspired me,” he said.

“My dream is to race professionally one day and show the world what a kid from South Africa can do.”