What Are The Mental Challenges Of Winning? | Psychology Of Performance | TAG Heuer

Race day. The moment where all the hard work comes together. Drivers are trying to race like it means nothing, when they know it means everything. Years of training and extensive mental strengthening. I decided that's it, I'm going to go up full gas. I said this is my chance. All culminate in a high speed battle fuelled by adrenaline. With so much on the line, how do the greatest drivers stay focused on the track ahead? There is simply no room for error. Formula 1 champions aren't just made through pure luck. They follow meticulous processes to drive them to success. Race day is the culmination of all of that hard work and effort and commitment and intensity and discipline into that one moment. The drivers have to be able to manage all of that build-up of pressure and excitement and nervousness to be able to execute their performance and to focus on the right things at the right time. For any humans, if something is important to us, we will experience stress, nerves, anxieties, worries, doubts. That's normal and it's the same for Formula 1 drivers. Millions of fans are watching, teams are working around the clock. And the time before the lights go out is getting closer and closer. This is the calm before the storm. Drivers are trying to race like it means nothing, when they know it means everything. Lewis, last year you came here as a newcomer. A lot of good results before this Grand Prix. This year the expectations are much higher. The results are not quite as good. How has the situation changed for you? What is really important for drivers to understand is that they can perform at their best and exceptionally well even when they are stressed. Nerves on their own are not a bad thing. The cortisol that's released when we get a bit stressed, the stress hormone, that can help as an activation. So it can energize us and activate us into doing something. Our performance will improve as we become physically more alert or aroused, up until a certain point where we'll hit our peak performance. And at that point, if we continue, our heart rate continues to rise, our intensity continues to increase, we can then start to perform poorly. Or even have a kind of catastrophic drop-off. I can figure out how to manage that, knowing that I can perform even when I am stressed. Because I'm a Formula One driver. I have performed at the highest level many times. I have won in every category I've ever been in. What I do is, I perform under stress when maybe other people wouldn't be able to. So many questions asked about his commitment, about his distractions. Could he handle the pressure? And he has shown them all with one of the great, great drives. Lewis Hamilton wins the British Grand Prix. A fantastic performance. The greats of the sport are able to take their nerves and turn them into fuel. Controlling their emotions in extraordinary ways. Pushing through the stress of their environment and extreme levels of pressure. And pulling off the stunning victories they've worked their entire lives for. Just before the race, when the driver knows that it's all down to them now. And in that moment, they're trying to, as much as possible, think of nothing other than just executing their performance. The first lap of a Formula One Grand Prix is a storm of automotive chaos. Each driver and their machine vies for position while trying to prevent their opponents from doing the same. Being surrounded by the whirring of engines and a tight pack of aggressively competitive drivers can be a huge overload for the brain. Wheel to wheel, collisions throughout the pack. It can seem like a superhuman feat to get through unscathed, let alone making passes. It's quite hectic, it's quite nerve-wracking. There's a lot of things going on in my mind all the time when you're out in the first lap. And normally after third, fourth lap, you can start going 95%. When you're in the eighth lap, number 10, then it just goes 100% flat out all the time. The first lap of a race can be carnage to those of us watching it. There's so much going on, the 20 cars trying to navigate their way through that first sector of the track. It's where there's the most close quarters battling between the cars and the most different variables that could take place. So it's a very challenging scenario from a focus and attention perspective. As drivers build their experience, they're able to recognize and notice more and more and more of what's going on around them. Because more and more and more becomes that bit more automatic because of the experiences that have got built up in that scenario. This can be known as perception-action coupling. So when a driver perceives something or sees something happen, their response is coupled with it. So they very, very quickly act. That's what's happening in that phase of the race and in all phases of the race where some information dictates their next action. And the start of the 76th lap, European Grand Prix. Krost gets away well, so does Hill, so does Schumacher. And Wendliger is coming up well, Senna is crowded out and he's down to 5th position. And Wendliger is up into 3rd place ahead of Schumacher. Krost leads, Hill 2nd, Wendliger is 3rd, and Ayrton Senna is up to 4th position ahead of Schumacher. And challenging Wendliger as they go round the right-hander into the old hairpin. Senna is up to 3rd. And after being crowded at the start, a quite brilliant couple of corners by Ayrton Senna. Tremendous stuff. He's going inside Damon Hill and Senna into 2nd place already. And he's giving it absolutely everything. And Senna goes through into the lead. He's passed Alain Krost, so the McLaren leads. Krost, 2nd, Hill is 3rd. A tremendous gap between the 3rd and 4th cars. This is an astounding performance by the Brazilian. There are loads of things to do at the start that they can't control. What are the two or three specific things that they as an individual can control? It might be looking through to the first corner and allowing everything else to happen in their peripheral vision. It might be the preparation that they've done beforehand. The lines that they've decided to approach the corner with. But what's important from a psychology perspective is the clarity going into that. Once the lights are out and it's time to go, then it's all a bit more automatic from there. Here is Ayrton Senna across the line and it is victory for the Brazilian. I've done it, he says. To those watching, champions appear to tap into a special zone. Pulling off what many would deem to be impossible. Focusing on their lines. Being unfazed by the odds. It slides out and away we go. Max Verstappen started 14th on the grid. In the first laps of pressure races, we often see great drivers creating miracles for themselves and their teams. See Verstappen going through on Leclerc as well. They know they don't want to tangle with him. But a Grand Prix is a true marathon, demanding unwavering precision from start to finish. After the carnage of the start of the race, things then settle into what is effectively a marathon. As the race wears on and other drivers falter around them, those pushing hardest for victory have to contend with extreme mental and physical exhaustion. Any laps in absolute concentration can result in success slipping away, or much worse. Lap after lap, whether they are far ahead or fighting wheel to wheel with their closest rivals, staying locked in is beyond vital. A Formula 1 race is an endurance event because of the time that it lasts for. That means that it's of course very physically demanding, but it's also very psychologically demanding for that same reason. It's very, very difficult to maintain that level of intensity and focus over such a long period of time. Drivers can manage this intensity for a couple of reasons. One is they're prepared for it. They're super physically fit. They've done tons of, if not previous races, testing and preparation so that they're cognitively sharp during that challenge as well. They can drift into an autopilot mode, responding to what's in front of them as opposed to consciously thinking through what's happening. I think it's inevitable that concentration will waver through a race. What is important to do is to be able to recognize and realize when that's happened, and then, without spending too long berating yourself for having lost concentration, is to skip that part and quickly refocus on what's important right now. And that's that controllable process, the thing that you can do right now that's in front of you. In a Grand Prix, when you're driving, it comes to the point that when you are getting tired, physically, mentally, the conditions of the track is changing all the time. It's never the same. When you get tired, you're forgetting these things. You start forgetting. In the year 2000, it was a Grand Prix in Belgium, Spa. Beginning of the race, I was leading the Grand Prix. It was first or second lap, I made a little mistake. I hit the kerb too much. It was also very slippery. There was still water on the kerb, so I lost the back end. And I could see a red Ferrari going past. Michael Schumacher, flat out, and I thought, oh no, this is going to be a challenge. I was able to catch him like ten laps before the end, and I had only one area, one place in the track where I was able to overtake him. And it was just after the Oruz corner, extremely high-speed corner. I don't know, was it three laps or something, I decided, that's it, I'm going to go absolutely full gas. I'm really fast now, but I knew Michael was going to do something naughty. Then I saw in the distance, Ricardo Sonda, a Brazilian driver, and he had a problem with the car. And he was driving in the middle of the track. I said, this is my chance. Michael has to go either right or left. Lucky he decided quite early to go on the left-hand side. And I went flat out on the right. Yes, he's done a brilliant move there, either side of Zonta. I was able to relax a bit, look in the mirror. And Häkkinen brilliantly takes the lead. And I had a big smile on my face. Mika Häkkinen has won the Belgian Grand Prix. It was fantastic, I tell you. It was a very good feeling. If a driver was to prepare for overtaking someone late on in the race to get onto the podium, that would feel amazing. It would be easy to get the dopamine response from making the overtake, to go, yes, I'm going to be on the podium. And then to lose focus, lose concentration because of that response, and then find yourself being overtaken three corners later and the opportunity is gone. So understanding how you're going to respond to different events, you might have a kind of cue word, which is, it's not over until it's over. The move doesn't count until we cross the finish line. Something like that to help get to that end point before we get the reward. As the finish line approaches, it will be natural for drivers to think about many things. The sacrifices it's taken to get to this point, the huge commitment that they've put in, that the people around them have put in, to imagine themselves on the podium, holding the trophy. If there's a championship on the line, this would be even greater. But it's essential to only go one step at a time. Now it's got to be going, less than seven seconds, and it is. Senna gets away across, fantastic. Senna left on the green, and they go flying past him. And this has given Cross an enormous advantage. And Senna has really got himself a problem now. Disastrous start for Ayrton Senna. Ayrton Senna down in 14th place, he has got it all to do. One lap completed, 50 laps to go. And Ayrton Senna is now starting to carve his way through the field. I think we might see a really outstanding drive from Senna as he fights his way back. The pressure has undoubtedly been getting to him. Now he's got the tough nuts to crack, because Alboreto is in fourth position. And Senna goes through, right almost onto the grass. Now this is a serious problem moment potentially for Alain Cross. He's going to have to punch that boost button. Senna is going to challenge for the lead. Senna has got the lead. This is certainly well deserved. If Ayrton Senna stays where he is now in first position, he is the world champion. Ayrton Senna crosses the line, and you can see his exultation. Ayrton Senna, at the age of 28, becomes world champion by winning the Japanese Grand Prix. With championships on the line, and the ultimate goal tantalisingly close, only the greatest of the sport hold firm and execute, pressing on to achieve the dream. Etching their names into Formula 1 history. Throughout it all, the daily grinding, the devastating failures, the unrelenting pressure. It's not just pure talent, or skill, or conditioning alone that creates Formula 1 success. It's the mind that makes the champion.