Ardara native Simon Breslin on the fast-paced world of professional motorsport

Simon Breslin admits he always knew what he wanted to do with his life but to speak it or say it out loud would probably have puzzled most.

It’s not exactly something you throw at the career guidance teacher or even your parents.

But a love for motorsport and an unguarded moment in front of the TV in his Leaving Cert year was what finally got the ball rolling or, in his case, the racing wheel.

Closing in on a decade further on down the track, the 26-year-old Ardara native has worked for and under some of the biggest names in motorsport as a pit mechanic.

But looking back on the formation of realising that dream, the genesis of it all really; he owes his late grandad John Gallagher a real debt of gratitude.

And that original inspiration, it’s the kind of story that wouldn’t look out of place in a Werthers Original advert.

“I loved watching motorsport growing up, I’d sit with my granddad every weekend and watch all of it,” said Breslin.

“Nearing the time, the Leaving Cert, I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Or at least I didn’t think it was possible to do what I wanted to do.

“There is a college in Silverstone - it’s called the National College of Motorsport. That was where I needed to get to.

“I just remember sitting watching Formula 1 one day and my mother just happened to get onto me. Purely coincidently she asked, ‘so what is it you want to do?’

“I just pointed at the TV and said ‘I want to do that’. I did some work experience with Cormac Ward in his garage in Ardara working on cars and I’d loved that.

“When I said that’s what I wanted to do I’d to reassure my mother that I meant in the pit, behind the scenes on the cars and not behind the wheel!

“So the next thing to figure out is ‘how do I get there?’

Simon Breslin at work on a tyre change during a pitstop 

 “I mean it’s not something you see on a CEO form. I did a little googling and came across the Silverstone option. It was actually like a pre-apprenticeship course.

“It’s basically an introduction to motorsport and the cars. From there, you then have to serve an apprenticeship with a team and get that hands-on experience and a certain amount of hours built up.

“I just remember looking around at Silverstone at the end of that first day and just the level of the other lads and their knowledge… it kind of dawned on me just how little I actually knew.

“But I got the head down and the aim was to at the very least be the hardest worker in the room.. And that was the focus - to just empty myself into it”.

After completing that initial step at Silverstone, Simon officially began his career in motorsport with Arden Motorsport based in Banbury, Oxfordshire.

It’s the first occasion of three, during this interview, that the former St Columba’s Comprehensive School, Glenties student says he ‘got lucky’.

But in an industry when the margins between winning and losing and, as he’ll soon explain, life and death, are wafer-thin; you no doubt have to make your own luck.

“I was really lucky that the tutors at the college were so helpful. One of them, an Irish lad from Dublin called Kenny Kirwan, he had some great contacts and he put me in touch with Arden.

“Christian Horner and his dad actually owned the team so it was an amazing opportunity. That was the start of it really. I was off to headquarters in Banbury in England”.

Simon would spend three years there and was, in his own words, ‘barely allowed to touch the cars’ as he worked his way up from the absolute bottom to eventually become their Number 1 mechanic in F4.

From there, he hooked up with MP Motorsport in Holland and once again moved up the pecking order to graduate to FREC (Formula Regional European Championship), “low-level F3” as Simon puts it and again eventually became a Number 2 mechanic.

The next stop on a rapid progression up the career ladder was a position at Van Amersfoort Racing (VAR), one of Europe’s top development teams, as a Number 2 mechanic in what was now F2 racing.

“Again, it was just timing and a little luck really,” he modestly explains. “I’d a really good friend that got a job there as the Number 1 and he told them he wanted to take me with him as the Number 2”.

Interestingly, despite opportunities to move to F1 and realise what was the original childhood dream Simon, through experience, says he’s instead choosing to pursue the opportunities that make him most happy and, in the process, best spikes the adrenaline.

“I’ve moved on from F2 now as I got to be a Number 1 there and that felt like the ceiling for me.

“I loved it and the plan was to stay on at VAR but the chance came up to go to America to sort of move into a management position - like a chief mechanic.

“There was another chance last year to go to F1. And even though that was the original goal way back at the start I just looked at the opportunity to go to America as the bigger challenge.

“I wanted to be the best mechanic I could be and for me, for long enough, that felt like getting to F1.

“But moving through the ranks you eventually realise that F1 isn’t the best when it comes to pushing yourself as a mechanic.

“It’s the top, of course, in terms of racing and like the Premier League it gets all the attention and generates the most revenue by far. It has the highest profile.

“But in terms of just mechanicing, F2 is just manic and there is so much going on in terms of what needs to be done”.

Zoning in on all of that, the chaotic nature of pit mechanicing, Simon goes into generous detail on the perils of the job where you can lose much more than just a race.

“The F2 car is basically the same size as an F1 car. But an F1 car could have over ten people working on it for a pitstop.

Breslin working on an elevated car shell at VAR

“Per corner, an F1 car will have three people alone, one taking off the wheel, one putting it on and one doing the gun.

“In F2, it’ll just be one mechanic per corner, and I’m one of them, doing all that on their own. It’s frantic but it’s what I love doing. It’s such a buzz but so much is also riding on those same four individuals.

“Myself and the chief mechanic are always on the rear of the car and you really have to be so careful. There are flames coming out the exhaust past your head.

“The cars are also back-wheel drive so you are completely at the mercy of the driver. The space is so tight between the rim and the calliper that your hand just about fits.

“If the driver let go of the clutch too soon well, you could lose your fingers. So it’s that kind of pressure and just teamwork that makes the margin for error so low”.

Simon once again finds himself in pastures new as he settles into life Stateside, in Atlanta, with VRD (Velocity Race Development).

He’ll not admit it but talent, much more than luck, has taken him all over the world in a relatively short space of time.

It’s been fast-paced with little time to draw breath. But Atlanta and the VRD hook-up seems and sounds like it could be a long-term one.

“I’m really enjoying it because it’s a different type of challenge. In Atlanta, this team VRD Racing, they have F4, F3 and another lower-level F3 all in that same group. I’m managing and working in one of the teams. It’s called the USF2000.

“It took some time but America has really embraced this type of motorsport now. Las Vegas, of course, is now on the calendar. The ‘Drive to Survive’ series on Netflix has only added to that.

“So the want in America is to try to get more of these types of races and events on their motorsport calendar. That’s part of what we’re looking to do as well. We’re looking to bring American drivers to Europe.

“Every day is so different - it’s full on but it’s brilliant out here. And depending where the racing is we’re all over the place really.

Formula 1 has 24 calendar events now and the F2 do 14 of those same races so it’s pretty hectic”.

At the time of speaking Breslin was looking forward to the weekend And as an Irish man in a new city, taking a proper look around. But old habits, it seems, die hard.

“It’s my first proper week in Atlanta so I’ve messaged the GAA club out here, Atlanta GAA, to see where they’re based.

“I’m hoping to have a little more time on my hands out here so it would be nice to get back kicking a little bit of ball. The first training session is this Tuesday. I’m not joking, I’m really looking forward to it.

“I always keep an eye out for the Ardara and Donegal results. The Donegal lads were actually out in Abu Dhabi recently.

“I’d know the likes of Niall O’Donnell, Brendan McCole and Peadar Mogan well. They all came down to see the set-up. We were testing at the time and so they came along to the track and we showed them around a little.

“So if Donegal get to the All-Ireland final later in the year I’ll be calling in that favour”!