‘Without knowledge you can drive but you can’t win’ – Jilles Groskamp
It’s easy to think that the top drivers in the World have a special ability to just show up at an event and put their car on the track and be quick straight off the bat. While there are one or two exceptions who do possess this super power, for the most part the success comes from combining that natural talent with a lot of hard work, that mostly goes unnoticed, between races. Racing at the top level is relentless because when you are not putting in the work your rivals are, and they are making marginal gains that combined can be the difference between them winning or you not. One driver who has always stood out as one of the hardest working drivers in our sport is Jilles Groskamp. Even back in the dominant years of the Tamiya TRF team in electric touring car it was Jilles who was doing most of the ground work for the entire team. That effort was justly rewarded when he became the 2012 Electric Touring Car World Champion at his home track of Heemstede. Now at the age of 43, Jilles admitting himself ‘I’m not the youngest guy anymore’, putting in the work is even more vital than before and through that comes knowledge which he points out ‘without knowledge you can drive but you can’t win’.
