Let's Talk Mental Health in Motorsport

October see's the annual "World Mental Health Day," and it's inspired me to explore the state of mental health within the world of motorsport, specifically Formula One.

There has always been some kind of negative stigma surrounding mental health and in motorsport it's fair to say that the subject isn't discussed enough, or at all. Motorsport is an extremely demanding sport for everyone involved. For the drivers, the teams, the organisers, the list goes on. Is it time things were looked at with a more serious approach?

Research in the past has revealed that sportspeople are more susceptible or vulnerable to mental health issues, such as depression, due to the level of pressure or stress one may experience. (formulanerds.com) But, when you see racing drivers in the zone, they are calm and collected. It's hard to believe that mental health could be an issue.

The pressures of motorsport begins at a young age. There are plenty of young children with aspirations of becoming a top-tier race driver, but with it comes plenty of sacrifices. From school to childhood experiences to moving away from family and friends, it's a lot for a young person to comprehend. And, it only get's worse. Climbing the motorsport ladder is a ruthless experience. It's all about being the best and getting the right results and sponsors. The pressure is endless.

It doesn't end at the top, however. Let's start by looking at Daniil Kvyat. Racing for Red Bull in the 2016 Formula One season, the Russian driver had an unlucky start to the season. After an incident with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel at the start of that year's Russian GP, Kvyat looked somber and forlorn in his interviews. He was later demoted from Red Bull back to Toro Rosso (now Alpha Tauri). The state of Daniil's mental health became a concern after he changed his Instagram bio to "just a human."

Then there's Romain Grosjean with his infamous and disastrous 2012 season that led to a one race ban after the Belgian GP. The Frenchman, himself, admitted that "I was all over the place, mentally, for a few days. I couldn’t think straight - I couldn’t think about getting in the car again." (crash.net) Also, it was during this season that Grosjean started to see a sports psychologist, saying, "it was about prioritizing my life and getting myself - my mind - right, before I could figure out how to be the quickest again.” (crash.net) We'll discuss sport psychologists in more detail further on.

Also, what we, as motorsport fans, tend to forget quite easily are the dangers that coincide with motorsport. Another reason for the drivers to experience an insane amount of pressure. Every time they step foot into a race car they know they are risking it all. It can be a matter of life or death.

Focusing on another Red Bull driver, this time Pierre Gasly. He lost his good friend Anthoine Hubert during a Formula Two race in Spa-Francorchamps in 2019. This unfortunate and incredibly sad event happened the same weekend Gasly returned to Toro Rosso after being demoted from Red Bull due to a string of bad results. Despite both of these events, the Frenchman stepped into his car and raced the Belgian Grand Prix. It really can be very difficult for us to understand the mental capacity of race drivers. They are something else.

And, then there's the subject of money and fame. Motorsport isn't cheap and the burden of financial issues looms over every aspiring racer. For most, the odds really are against them. And what if they achieve their dream of reaching the pinnacle of motorsport and have to accept the fame that comes with it? That's not plain sailing either. Due to the ever increasing popularity of social media and motorsport docu-series such as Netflix's "Drive to Survive," Formula One drivers, for example, are as famous as they've ever been. And, social media users, aka keyboard warriors, tend not to hold back on what they have to say. Williams driver Nicholas Latifi experienced that at the end of the very infamous 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after his crash near the end of the race which controversially handed that years World Drivers Championsip to Max Verstappen. It's forgotten that race drivers are humans with feelings. Unfortunately, the toxicity that comes with social media seems to be getting worse and I fear that that's how it's always going to be.

But it's not all bad. Things are changing.

One thing that's been around for some years now is the presence of "sport psychologists." As mentioned before, Romain Grosjean has worked with one since 2012. Although they're not necessarily there to help with mental health, some drivers have sought help from these professionals to improve their performance when it comes to racing and it's shown it does help. Grosjean went from crashing every weekend to standing on numerous podiums and continuing in Formula One until the end of 2020. Felipe Massa also, at one point, saved his Ferrari career after seeking help.

Sport psychologists are all well and good but their not mental health councillors, so to speak. So, what are teams really doing about their driver's and team member's mental health exactly?

Let's use McLaren as an example. The Formula One team from Woking, UK has been partnering with mental health charity "Mind" since 2020 and have raised over £400,000 for the charity. They employ eight trained mental health first aiders that form a part of their team on race weekends.

Then there's Mercedes F1 team who have an internal wellbeing programme which includes focus on mental health and encourages their team members and employees to discuss their mental health.

"We want team members to support team members, knowing they can turn to each other and have a difficult conversation, and say, 'I'm not feeling great'. Having that is so powerful" Chris Armstrong - Mercedes Wellbeing manager.

One thing that has changed drastically in recent times is how vocal racing drivers are becoming on the subject of mental health. From Lewis Hamilton, to Daniel Ricciardo, to Lando Norris, etc. This is extremely important as they are the face of motorsport.

In 2021, McLaren's Lando Norris made an appearance on UK TV show "This Morning" where he discussed in detail his mental health struggles.

"(...) Coming into Formula 1 at 19, there's a lot of eyes of you. So dealing with all these kind of things, that took its toll on me. [I was] feeling like, I don't know what's next, if this goes wrong, if I don't go out in the next session and perform, what's the outcome of all of this? Am I going to be in Formula 1 next year? If I'm not, what am I going to do? Because I'm not really good at many other things in life. So just all of that, and then feeling a depressed a lot of time that if I have a bad weekend I just think, I'm not good enough and things like that. When they start adding up over a season, and the social media side of it all, that can just really start to hurt you." - Lando Norris, This Morning 2021

F1 also recently released a video about mental health on the sport's official Youtube channel. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2c3LEX5MEY

With each driver giving their take on mental health, this is a massive step forward for mental health and motorsport. Some stand out quotes include:

"For us drivers, it's as much of our mental health as it is physical health." - George Russell, Mercedes

"There's this weird threshold that we are not able to overcome to talk about our feelings, because we think it's a sign of weakness." - Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin

"Mental health is not a joke, or something to be laughed at, or overlooked. There's a lot of darkness surrounding us all, and it's very easy to be pulled down by those things." - Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

"We put on our body armours, put on our race suits and our helmets, but we're just as vulnerable as everyone else." - Alex Albon, Williams

"We live in a world of social media and other things that are toxic sometimes, it's easier to have more problems now than maybe 20 years ago, so it's important to keep an eye." - Fernando Alonso, Alpine

Mental illness affects 1 in 4 people across the globe and it's just as prevalent in motorsport as it is in everyday life. Little by little, bit by bit, the negative stigma surrounding mental health in motorsport is being broken down. However, we're not there just yet. We still have a very long way to go.

Just remember, it's ok not to be ok.

So What Did We Learn Exactly?

I'm disappointed that we're still having to discuss incidents like this but the conversation HAS to be had. What happened in the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix is completely unacceptable, as was the way it was handled by the FIA. Have we learnt nothing from 2014/15 when F1 lost one of their own bright, young stars? Apparently not.

As much as it hurts, let's skip back to that awful October day on which the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix was being held.

That year's race was held under "intermittent heavy rainfall" caused by an approaching typhoon. Also daylight was receding, nightfall was coming. Lap 43 and the safety car was out while Adrian Sutil's Sauber was being recovered. Marussia driver Jules Bianchi lost control of his car on this lap colliding with the tractor/crane that was recovering the Sauber. At the time not much was known about what happened to Bianchi or the condition the Frenchman was in. Subsequently the race was suspended. Reports soon followed that Bianchi was unconscious and had been transported to hospital with a critical head injury. In November 2014, he was taken out of his artificial coma and transported to a hospital in Nice where he would succumb to his injuries on 17th July 2015.

Almost immediately following the 2014 incident, the FIA made changes to the safety aspect of Formula One to ensure there would be no repeat of what happened to Jules. A month later at the US Grand Prix the successful Virtual Safety Car (VSC) was trialed and new regulations for the following year would mean the cars would have to be designed differently than what they had been for 2014. This also led to the mandatory introduction of the halo in 2018 that has since saved countless lives in the world of motorsport. And, not to forget the most important aspect in regards to Bianchi's accident in particular, the way stricken cars are recovered. Usually, "race control will permit the use of recovery vehicles once the field has been safely bunched together behind the Safety Car at neutralized speed." This is the legacy Jules has had on not just Formula One but all motorsport alike. However, unfortunately, today's events in the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix disrespected that.

So, what exactly happened in 2022 to cause such a fuss?

The 2022 Japanese GP was very wet and very dark. Eerily similar to that of 2014. Carlos Sainz lost control of his Ferrari in the second sector on the first lap resulting in the deployment of the safety car. Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly struck some advertising that had made it's way onto the track as a result of Sainz's accident. Gasly had to pit, shuffling him to the back of the field. As the drivers, behind the safety car, re-approached Sainz's stricken Ferrari, a large recovery vehicle had made it's way onto the track. Gasly who had yet to catch up with the rest of the pack narrowly avoided a collision with the tractor and made his anger clear about the tractor's appearance over team radio. Then, due to the now heavier rain, the race was red flagged.

Gasly was not the only driver to vent his anger over the incident with a number of other drivers coming onto the team radio. See their messages below:

Sergio Perez: “Is it not clear that we don’t want to see ever a crane on the track?”

Pierre Gasly: “God – what the? – what is this tractor? What is this tractor on track? I passed next to it, like… This is unacceptable! What has happened? I can’t believe this…”

Sebastian Vettel: "Next time, they should inform us if there’s a fricking tractor on the road”

Nicholas Latifi: “It’s (the tractor) not great in these conditions. Very silly, actually.”

Some drivers also took to social media. McLaren's Lando Norris tweeted:

"WTF. How’s this happened!? We lost a life in this situation years ago. We risk our lives, especially in conditions like this. We wanna race. But this… Unacceptable." - @landonorris

It's easy to say that everyone is over reacting and that we get recovery vehicles on track all of the time but the issue here is the conditions and timing in which the recovery vehicle was deployed. As mentioned above, the FIA will deploy any recovery vehicle once the safety car has bunched the field together. That's fair enough. The pack is bunched and their speed is low. That's what a safety car is for. But during this safety car period the field wasn't closed in, it was dark and very wet, the tractor was barely visible through all of the spray and there were marshals on the track. And yes, Gasly was going faster than the other cars but he was still below the delta time. There are so many factors which contribute as to why this event was unacceptable. If we remember, Jules' accident was preventable. We were lucky nothing happened here.

So what can be done differently? We can't expect the sessions to be red flagged every time a car needs recovering, can we? It's not viable. However, in wet conditions (even if just a sprinkle) this needs to be the case. We cannot take the risk of a car potentially aquaplaning, even if they are behind the safety car, because it is possible, as we saw with Jules. Or, here's an idea, replace recovery vehicles with cranes where possible. Not only will this all but abolish the risk of drivers loosing control and hitting the recovery vehicles, but it would potentially also speed up the time needed behind the safety car during a recovery. And, why does the race director have zero communication with the drivers during a race? For example, in Formula E, the race director can personally speak to all drivers at once warning them of safety cars, obstructions on track and full course yellows. Supposedly, it can be difficult to establish the right course of action but something different HAS to be done.

So there we have it. Sunday 9th October 2022 brought back a lot of sad memories for drivers, teams, fans alike but it also opened our eyes. Safety in F1 is forever evolving but still, at times, it's just not good enough. Jules' death was not in vain. He has saved many a driver thanks to the advancements in safety. Hopefully the FIA and Formula One can learn from this. But we've said this before, haven't we?

Driver Market: This Should Have Happened A Long Time Ago!

The following post contains opinions and views that are my own.

It's Japanese GP weekend. The first one since 2019, thanks to the Covid Outbreak. And, a few hours before the beginning of FP3, which is in the middle of the night here in Europe, some news broke. In fact, it was news we had all been expecting but trying to figure out what the heck was going on at two in the morning when you're half asleep is something. Regardless, Pierre Gasly will be driving for Alpine in 2023 and Formula E champ; Nyck de Vries, will be replacing him at Alpha Tauri. I can't help but think that these moves, not necessarily to the teams they have signed with, should have been done years ago.

Let's begin with Pierre Gasly. The 26 year old from Rouen in France has been apart of the Red Bull family since 2014 with the majority of those years spent in Formula One with Alpha Tauri (Toro Rosso), besides a brief stint at Red Bull Racing. I wrote a post about the Frenchman's team options for the future a few months ago and said this:

"Alpha Tauri is a junior team and Pierre is no longer a junior. For years, a driver at this team would be there on average for two years and then would either move to Red Bull or be shown the door."

For a while now I've believed that Pierre isn't benefiting his career staying at Alpha Tauri. Of course, it's a seat in Formula One, you'll take what you can and show everyone what you can do with what you've got. Also, in reality, he was never going to drive for the main Red Bull team again. Really, his only option would be to get out while he can. That's what ex-Toro Rosso teammate Carlos Sainz did. Look at him now.

Alpha Tauri has been a safe haven for Gasly and other seats are difficult to come by so it's understandable that it's taken this long for him to move elsewhere. I'm intrigued to see how Pierre fares in a different team. Sometimes, especially in his position, it's a risk you just need to take.

Take a look at my full blog post in regards to Pierre's future options here: https://bronnypreece.wixsite.com/throughthechicane/post/my-opinion-pierre-gasly-and-alpha-tauri-is-it-time-to-move-on

And then we have Nyck de Vries. After his fantastic debut with Williams at the 2022 Italian GP, it was expected that the 27 year old Dutchman would sign with a team to race in F1 in 2023. I won't lie, I was gobsmacked when I first heard the rumours that he had signed with Alpha Tauri. They (Alpha Tauri and Red Bull) have a decent crop of junior drivers in lower categories, why choose Nyck? Simple. He proved himself that he is worthy of an F1 seat and they were not going to let him go to a rival team where he could flourish against them.

It's not a secret, Nyck is no stranger to success. He has won numerous karting championships, Formula Renault 2.0 championships, the 2019 Formula 2 championship as well as becoming the first Formula E World Champion in the 2020-2021 season. He's also been associated with McLaren and Mercedes in the past. It's amazing it's taken him this long to secure an F1 race seat but you could say that about many a driver.

I was dubious, however, of de Vries moving to Formula One. He's made himself a fantastic motorsporting career thus far and I was unsure if this would undo all of that but as we always say, "F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport." The majority of racing drivers want to be an F1 driver and after de Vries' debut in Italy, my worries are all but gone.

I'm thrilled for both Gasly and de Vries. These are two moves that I think will pay off, if not right away at some point in the future. Obviously, we still have some way to go in the 2022 Formula One season and a couple of seats are still available for the next. Right now we'll just have to wait with anticipation for 2023!