What's It Like To Be In The Spotlight | Psychology of Pressure | TAG Heuer

Formula One drivers are more than just elite performers, athletes and racers. There are so many different people that will have opinions. They're international superstars. Success in the sport brings with it fortune and fame. People are travelling all over the world to come to see the Grand Prix. There's a huge amount of scrutiny in Formula One. Huge pressures that drivers can experience off track. It is psychologically very tough. Throughout this endless wave of attention, the mind of a Formula One champion must stay razor sharp. They're human beings as well as race car drivers. Focused only on performing at their absolute best. Media spotlight is a fundamental part of the job of being an F1 driver. It's part and parcel of what they do. As they go through the different formulas, it becomes more and more important. As there are bigger sponsors, more investment. There's more of a need to be doing media work. They get to do some fantastic experiences that lots of people wouldn't be able to do. And they can certainly get enjoyment in lots of those. I'm sure that they would, at times, like to do less and focus more on being in the car and driving. It is psychologically very tough. There's a lot of fans who want your time. You're just going to walk past them. You need to stop. You need to take a picture. You know, people are traveling all over the world to come to see the Grand Prix. And some of them, they're coming to see you. Like musical artists on tour, they travel from show to show, city to city, country to country, giving each stop everything they have. Before packing up, jetting off and doing it all again the next week. Staying out of the public eye is nearly impossible. I can't think of any other endeavor where there's so much data and information directly letting people know how you've done something. There are media pressures. There are so many different people that will have opinions. They're talking about the public image or perception of them in the same way that people would talk about other celebrities or even characters in a TV show. And for those fighting to be crowned champion, it only gets more and more intense. Okay. Thank you. How much? Seventy-two. Ayrton, a new season starts with this weigh-in. Are you putting everything of last year behind you? Well... That's a good start to the interview. With every championship push, every stunning victory, the spotlight shines brighter. It's a continuous cycle of potential distractions that begin the moment they are given the seat. And for some drivers, it starts earlier than that. The prospect of generational talent can send the media into a frenzy. Speculation runs rampant as the pressure to perform weighs heavier and heavier on young drivers' shoulders. Verstappen doing a great job. He's 17 years old, for goodness sake. The youngest driver ever to race in Formula 1. These are young guys. And we were encouraging, sometimes teenagers, but guys in their 20s, to think these things and get clarity on these things because they're under such intense levels of scrutiny that most people in normal life aren't, that it's helpful to try to accelerate some of this sense of self. When we are talking about 18 years old, 17 years old, 20 years old Formula 1 drivers, they are still extremely young. You got it, guys? First Grand Prix, street circuit in Phoenix. Psychologically, it was difficult. Lotus, though not so happy, Mika Hakkinen, 22nd fastest, and several moments of excitement during the course of the day. After 15 laps, my steering wheel comes off on the main straight. Some of the stuff out there over the past couple of days has looked just a little bit hairy, hasn't it? Yes, that's right. Yeah, a little bit. It was quite a tough experience. I knew this year was going to be trouble in 1991, but it doesn't matter. I was in Formula 1. I needed to do my job. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Thank you. Drivers can experience really challenging questions or criticisms in the press and in other circumstances. So what we try to do is help them to prepare for those as much as possible. If we know that a driver is going to be challenged about or asked about something that they find difficult to talk about, maybe a mistake in a previous race or contract negotiations or something like that, we'll prepare for the emotions that they might experience when they're asked some of those questions. And Verstappen hangs on to the lead, but he went all four wheels off the road. How might you respond to that versus how would you ideally like to respond to that? We might practice that, with the aim being that the driver then has their strategies prepared for some of those more challenging questions and may even already have their answers prepared. So they don't need to think their way through each different interview, but they can give some of their pre-prepared responses or semi-prepared responses. So they're managing their energy as best as they can. They have to know themselves well enough to understand when they're getting stressed, when they're getting frustrated, and proactively regulate themselves before they get too stressed that they might act or behave in a way that they wouldn't want to. They can control what happens to help them to get into their ideal performance state. Max Verstappen wins a Formula One Grand Prix and is the youngest driver ever to win a Formula One World Championship Grand Prix. The best drivers, when they're fighting for race wins and for championships, the pressure and the scrutiny level just gets higher and higher and higher, which means those at the top level have to be able to manage that phenomenally well. A super talented driver who's not able to manage what comes with being an F1 driver will not be able to consistently perform at their best when they're on the track. But in today's world, drivers have to grapple with a new type of spotlight, one that is even harder to escape and even follows them into their homes. This is the age of social media, an unprecedented period of 24-7 discussion. Social media can be hugely positive. Great interactions, great feedback, wonderful praise and positivity. It can be fantastic. Some of it is not pleasant and there are horrible and even abusive comments at times. One of the big challenges that I think we're all trying to comprehend and know how best to support drivers through is the constant nature of it. It's not like you're in a room facing criticism and then you leave the room and it stops. It follows you around. You can be constantly getting the notifications coming up from people telling you what they think of you in a helpful or often unhelpful way. They're under extreme pressure and scrutiny all the time. From the moment they step in the paddock until the moment they leave and then onwards because everyone can access their data and see what's going on. We're still trying to understand what the longer-term impacts are of the social media kind of way of living that we all have now. It's understanding what's helpful for me and what's not helpful for me. That seems to be the key. I'll often advise drivers to manage the time they spend on social media in a way that is genuinely helpful for them. And usually that would involve not engaging with it, particularly after a not-so-great performance. That's a really big challenge. For some, that could mean engaging with it a lot and often, and they're really comfortable with some of those challenging comments and they can roll with them fine. I think the key thing is to reconnect with the kind of real tangible world around them. So those key core people that are around them, whose perspectives they really value and trust, whether that's directly, or it could be over the phone or a video call, etc, with the people that are important to them, to reconnect with who they are, their purpose, their values, and the real them, if you like, as opposed to the media version of them. So if a driver gets stuck in a kind of negative media spiral of difficult or challenging criticism, it can be helpful to remind them that those comments are from people who don't know them about their media image, not about them as a person, because how could they be? They don't know them. That's one way of buffering against some of the challenges in the kind of virtual world, if you like. Social platforms can sometimes become just another type of distraction. The greats always find a way to filter out the noise. With so much to keep track of and focus on, anything that is going to hinder performance needs to be zoned out. Being able to quiet the mind and find clarity One really helpful strategy for managing distractions is actually not to try to block them out, but to accept that they are a normal part of the process. So rather than to take energy trying to protect your space too much, I can accept that we're going to have these, and that will take less energy for me than combating against and fighting against and trying to block or stop them. It was a big challenge to come back to racing. When you have an accident, you have damage in your brain, you need the brain to recover nicely. Mika Häkkinen, good to see him back in the McLaren after his terrible accident at Adelaide, the last Grand Prix of last year. 96, going to the first Grand Prix, you walk in the paddock and people are looking at you, like, is he OK? When you come back to racing and you had an accident like that, automatically everybody is asking, how are you, this is after your accident, can you race now? It can be quite negative. You don't want a negative environment when you're in a Grand Prix, you want a positive environment. People who I work closely with, when I was looking at their face, I saw they were scared. They were thinking, like, what's going to happen? You had to fight with your emotions going to the first Grand Prix. I couldn't do it. I couldn't go flat out, you know? It's like you're psyching yourself up constantly all the time, and that's what you had to do. Let's just go for it. Let's go to the future. Let's go to challenge again why we came here in the first place. We are here to win. Distraction of all kinds, whether they come from the media, online or from past experiences, are a huge obstacle to F1 success. We know we're going to have these distractions, we know we're going to have these challenges. The routines that the drivers go through before they get in the car are essential for them maximising their performance and managing the pressure around them. Then they'll start to clarify their thoughts, so make sure they're really clear on what they're trying to achieve in the session that's coming up. They'll visualise the first few actions that they know they're going to have in the car, and then they follow their routine of out of their driver room, helmet on. When I put my crash helmet on, it puts me in a different world. It gives me incredible peace, quietness. When I sit in a car, I know exactly what to do. They'll have their suit on, that process of then getting into the car, which is their safe place. That day, I suddenly realised that I was no longer driving it conscious, and I was in a different dimension for me. After all the noise and drama, all the pressure and distraction, the greatest are able to find a quiet amongst the chaos. Their absolute self-confidence drowns out any doubt, and from there, the winning instinct kicks in. The circuit for me was a tunnel, which I was just going, going, going, and I realised I was well beyond my conscious understanding.