Racing Driver Power Couple Claire Jedrek & Yuey Tan on 3:30am Training & Their Parenting Approach

Claire Jedrek, SG’s OG female race car driver and Grand Prix racing driver husband Yuey Tan talk parenting and work. ‘There is so much pressure as a mother, that we have to achieve on so many levels.’ ‘We can’t fit it all in, so it’s give and take. At work, we are 100% committed, we do the same when we are with the family.’

British-born and Singapore-raised Claire Jedrek is famously known as Singapore’s OG female race car driver. She is currently a podium-placed triathlete, competitive mountain biker, and has worked in the media industry as a presenter for a decade and a half, hosting for Motorsport and Esport internationally. Claire is married to Yuey Tan, a Singaporean racing driver who has made over 154 international race starts finishing on the podium over 80 times, with 8 victories and 1 Championship title, plus he will be racing his 13th Singapore Grand Prix this year in a Porsche 911 GT3 Carrera Cup car. Talk about a power couple! Claire and Yuey are parents to two kiddos, 5-year-old Oli and 4-going-on-14, Charly (affectionately known as Tapeworm and Maggot). We last interviewed Claire Jedrek when she was pregnant with her first child (her maternity photos are just gorgeous). Read on for Claire and Yuey’s insightful joint interview on their busy schedules, juggling it all and their parenting approach!

Claire, you’re a mum to two kids, a presenter, and a competitive athlete – you give the appearance of “doing it all” yet you shared on social media that you have in the past struggled with a sense of not achieving enough – tell us about this?  

There is so much pressure as a mother, that we have to achieve on so many levels. We’re told a successful mother is one that works, juggles family and looks after herself. I’ve never felt that in the overall grand scheme of things, that the image portrayed was inclusive.

I remember one day sitting at home after Charly was born, I turned to Yuey and told him I felt upset I was just sitting at home feeding a baby. I felt pressured with all the social media and success stories that I wasn’t achieving enough. He turned to me with some powerful words, asking me why being a mother wasn’t enough of a sense of achievement for me, saying that I should be proud of everything I was at that moment. Emotional stuff. He was right.

Tell us about your busy schedules – how do you fit it all in?

Claire: My work in the year is all year round, any day and any time of the week. We can’t fit it all in, so it’s give and take especially with social engagements. We don’t do a lot of eating out at restaurants and we mostly cook and eat at home a lot due to training schedules and nutrition planning.

Yuey:  Our daily schedule involves waking up any time from 3.30am onwards for individual training, usually cycling. Claire competes in triathlons so she has to swim and run as well. We then tag team on school runs and getting kids ready for school, and then throughout the day, it’s meetings, filming, or for Claire hosting. By 3.30pm we are back picking kids up, preparing for dinner, post-school activities like tennis and swimming and as a family we are usually in bed early by 830pm. At weekends we are always up early training and then spend our time out eating somewhere and looking for family activities.

Do you still have off-seasons and on-seasons? Paint us a picture of how you both balance parenting and work/life!

Typically around December, we try to take 2/3 weeks out and shut off from anything work-related to enjoy the family. On a monthly basis Motorsport season is March to December so those are official work months.

We can’t have it all, so there is a lot of organisation, a lot of communication and following through with planning. We always try to remember when we are at work, to stay 100% committed and we do the same when we are with each other as a family.

What is one aspect of your job that always surprises people?

Claire: People tend to think perhaps there are many glamourous aspects of it, but there is a lot of talking to yourself for prep, lots of dodgy hotels and food when travelling with a production team. Even though we spend a lot of time travelling, if it’s for work, we rarely get to experience the host country and it’s not a holiday as we are usually out 630 am and back in bed by 10pm. Long hours, tired feet and the ability to keep adapting.

Yuey Tan: Racing means spending a lot of time with your team, so it’s important that we get along and know each other well. Before races I enjoy laughing and cracking jokes with people around me, it takes the edge off the upcoming race. What people don’t realise as well is that racing is 70% business, dealing with sponsors, clients, marketing and media and usually it starts the year before to get everything running smoothly. 

How do you deal with long times apart solo parenting when one of you is working abroad? 

Claire: To be honest most of the time if Yuey is racing I’m usually there and it’s the kids who don’t follow us. When I’m off overseas for work, unfortunately, my family aren’t able to follow me and we stay connected with pictures and group chats, but we usually don’t talk that much as we are pretty focused on our individual work.

Yuey: Individually, whoever is home with the kids usually has their own way of how to handle the kids as they are so different when around us individually.

Who watches your kids while you work abroad?

Claire: When we are away we have a nanny who is their second mum and everything amazing that I lack, she provides. The kids love her to bits and she loves them. My parents drop over at times to provide a bag of gummies and entertainment.

What’s your parenting approach?

We are pretty chilled. We don’t believe in being best friends with our kids and we definitely don’t believe in raising our voices in the house or at each other and try to talk out situations when things get intense with their emotions.

We encourage negotiation skills and giving them choices and hearing them out on their choices. We both believe in making them feel loved and supporting them to the best of our ability. We are outdoor people so we like them spending as much time outdoors.

Hardest part of parenting?

We both agree that it’s negotiating with kids and trying to overcome their big emotions at this age. It’s really about being patient at the least.

Fave way to spend time with the family?

Probably when we travel nearby to countries like Bali, we really disconnect from work and technology and spend proper time concentrating on reconnecting with nature, animals and just living.

How did you first meet?

We met briefly at Zouk through mutual friends and we actually used to chat on Facebook about photography, something we both are passionate about. It wasn’t until I moved back to Singapore at the end of 2012 from Australia that Yuey was driving by me in Tiong Bahru and Facebooked me for drinks in town and the rest is history.

Tell us something quirky about yourselves 

Claire: Yuey eats sandwiches with a knife and fork, he’s not a fan of holding his food.
Yuey: Claire has a habit of leaving a room, or anywhere really and never looking back once. 

Do you have any tips for keeping the romance alive in your relationship?

We both believe in taking time out several times in the month. It’s so easy to feel tired and feel the need to keep busy and making sure the kids are busy. The kids can be left bored to use their imagination. It’s a necessity to make time and remember who you were as a team. We always say our please and thank you’s and make sure we aren’t entitled towards each other.

Tell us about your kids – and why do you call them Tapeworm and Maggot?

When they were in my belly they felt like what I would describe as a tapeworm and maggot. It was more of an endearing name though it sounds slightly more like parasites.

Oli is our first born and he’s 6 in January and Charly turned 4 in August. They couldn’t be more different which is crazy but it proves personality is from birth.

Oli is a sweet, empathetic child, who cares deeply about how people feel, he likes informing people of what he’s doing and is very by the book and truthful, he’ll give you his last piece of food and doesn’t like rubbish thrown around. He is however not into learning Mandarin but loves gaming.

Charly, wow, she’s 4 turning 14. Socially she understands complex relationships, can be quite judgemental, can wake up on the wrong side of the bed and knows how to press your buttons but at the same time make you feel like you are the only person in the world that she loves. She’s fantastic at listening to something one time and being able to repeat a song and loves Mandarin. She is a proper entertainer and can handle herself in a room of grownups.

We agree that when they start dating one day, Oli will be the one to be heartbroken and Charly will be the heartbreaker.

Thanks so much, Claire and Yuey – it’s been so fun hearing about your busy lives! Wishing you all the best at the Singapore Grand Prix this weekend!