Oscar Piastri Exclusive: The Mindset Secrets of F1's Calmest Driver (E406)

0:03If I asked you at 14, do you believe you'll be a Formula 1 driver or an F1 world champion, what would you have said? Honestly, probably no. I just wanted to race cars for a living. I try and look at it from a very realistic point of view. I knew that as long as I got close to my potential, that I could win win races. Having respect for one another and being friends with one another are two very different things. Realistically, I probably only had to beat Lando. Obviously, Max was back in the picture later in the year. 24 times a year, you've got to go on track and prove that you're better than me.

0:38Do you believe you will one day be a Formula 1 world champion? Oscar, welcome to High Performance. Thank you. Well, here we are. Another season of F1 is underway. I'm always interested when I've watched someone like you come through from the junior formula and now here you are, and this is the first time you and I have had a chance to sit down and chat. But how is this life compared to the dream you had for it when you were an 11-year-old sitting in a go-kart? There's a lot of elements that are just as cool as you would think. Like, you know, when you generally take a step back and think about what I'm doing, it's pretty cool.

1:18I'm driving the fastest cars in the world. I think what is different, like there's a lot of behind-the-scenes work. There's obviously the hard work that goes in on kind of an engineering and performance side of things. There's obviously all the kind of marketing and media and sponsorship side of stuff as well, which, you know, when you're an 11-year-old kid, you basically just jump in your go-kart, do laps and go home again and that's kind of it. So that part is certainly different to what you, I guess, dream of as a kid, but it's all part of it. But I think the other biggest difference is like when you're actually in the situation, you have to consciously take a step back to appreciate what you're doing.

2:02Like when you're in the moment, now I go, okay, I'm driving my car. Like I kind of ignore the fact that it's an F1 car and the fastest car in the world. And I just go, this is my job. I'm trying to do the best job that I can. Like the feeling of sitting in the car and what I'm trying to achieve is the same as when I was 10 years old, but 10-year-old me would be looking at that going, this is the best thing ever. So that's probably the biggest difference is you have to consciously take that step back because once you're in F1, obviously I am for race wins and championships, but they're not so far off in the distance.

2:39They're kind of within touching distance. And have you consciously done that step back moment? Because the life you're living doesn't come for free, right? I remember talking here actually to your teammate, Lando, and I said, how's life? And do you know what? He just went, hmm, lonely. Fernando Alonso has been on the podcast. At the end of the conversation, the question was, what's the cost of doing this? And he said, well, personal relationships. At the time, he said, I don't have kids, for example. He obviously does now. So have you taken those moments to step back and realize that this doesn't come for free?

3:11Therefore, you have to find the joy in those things that the 10-year-old, 11-year-old you would not have believed you were doing for a living. Definitely, yes. I think, yeah, for me, I take a lot of kind of joy and happiness from being able to drive race cars for a living and fortunate enough to be in a competitive team, fighting for wins, podiums, championships. and that's the kind of stuff that you've always dreamed of as a racing driver. But like you said, it doesn't come for free, especially if you're not from Europe. You've got that added step of moving to Europe at some point. And for me, that came at the age of 14.

3:59So it was pretty early to be making that decision. and I think that was a good thing in some ways because I was young, naive of kind of, you know, as far as I knew I was going overseas to go and race the best guys in the world and that was, you know, that sounded awesome to me. But then, yeah, once you kind of look back on it, yeah, it's a pretty tough decision to make, you know, not being able to see your family very regularly. You know, even now I go back home for a couple of weeks a year over Christmas. So, you know, in those, how long have it's been now? Ten years, I've probably spent in total seven or eight months seeing my family away from a racetrack.

4:53You know, I've seen them at the racetrack, but it's a bit different when you're at a racetrack versus just relaxing at home. So there's definitely decisions you have to make along the way. But at the end of the day, I decided that I wanted to be an F1 driver and that I was willing to give up certain things to make that happen. And I'm certainly glad that I was able to accomplish that. But yeah, I'm pretty happy driving race cars. I'm sure you are. And people obsess over the decisions you make now, the teams to join, the decisions you make behind the wheel. I think this decision at 14 to leave Australia, travel to the other side of the world without your family to pursue your dream is a really fascinating moment.

5:37And I think people don't think about the fact that if you're a Spaniard or you're a Brit or you're a Frenchman or you're Italian, well, you're still in the same continent. You can whip home at a weekend. That option is not available for you. As soon as we finish this conversation, you're pretty much about to fly off to Miami, so people will be listening to this ahead of that race. they've announced a few regulation changes you had an issue in Melbourne with the car delivering a lot of power Oliver Berman had the same thing in Japan from what you've seen and the changes they've made, is it enough?

6:11It's hard to say now I think there's definitely some rule changes that are definitely a step in the right direction I think some of the stuff around the kind of power you get from the boost button. I'll be honest with you, there's a lot of rules I still need to actually look through and see what specifically that changes. So it's still complex. And with the engines we've got, there's always going to be a compromise somewhere. And I think for me, the biggest thing has been the kind of coordination and collaboration between the drivers teams, F1 and the FIA, it's been actually quite refreshing, I think, for especially some of the older guys to see the collaboration.

7:00But time will tell. I think there probably will need to be some further tweaks. How easy they are to implement this year, we don't know. But I'm sure there'll be some changes probably next year or in the future. But it's definitely going in the right direction. So hopefully we see that on show in Miami. We'll be right back after a quick word from our partners.

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9:07So go back to that 14-year-old. What was the decision-making process you can remember going through at that point? um well it was kind of a let's say joint ish decision between me and uh my parents especially my my dad um you know he took me to all my karting races he was my mechanic when i was racing in australia um you know my mom was very supportive in kind of allowing me to chase my my dreams but um you know not particularly interested in in motorsport she was interested in my racing, obviously, but also very supportive in that I've got three younger sisters and, you know, it would have been quite easy for her to turn around and say, I can't, you know, I can't look after the girls and kind of not see, you know, my dad or me so often.

10:02It would have been quite easy for her to turn around and say that, but she didn't. She let me do it and kind of did her best to make it work. So I think that side of things was one thing. But I did a race the year before in 2014, which was kind of the litmus test for basically whether my dad was going to put in the time and the money to try and give me a crack at racing in Europe. And that race went well. I finished third and then I did a few more races the following year in 2015, which also went reasonably well. But we could kind of see that compared to the guys that were, you know, I did the European Championships and I think one other race.

10:49And, you know, all the other guys, all the other kids were racing every second weekend, basically. And you could kind of tell that we were doing a good job for the amount of kind of effort and time we were putting in. but to do it properly or to get ultimate success, we needed to do it properly. And the only way to do it properly is to commit to it and move to Europe. So for me at the time, there was kind of the weighing up of I'm going to be leaving Australia, I'm going to be leaving my friends behind, not being able to see my sisters in particular, not seeing my mum that much. My dad was there for the first six months pretty much full time.

11:29and then I went to boarding school after that. So the idea of going to live at school wasn't the most appealing at 14 years old, but I knew that I had to weigh up. Do I want to continue on this path? Firstly, racing against the best guys in the world, which I'm really enjoying. And at this fork in the road, either I keep doing this and kind of keep making those sacrifices, or I go back to Australia and probably try and race VA supercars. That probably would have been the plan. But I had, I guess, the passion. My family was supportive in what they were supporting me, both with time, effort with my sisters and making it work and financially as well.

12:21so I kind of thought well if they're willing to to help me with this and I really want to do it then why not there's plenty of opportunities here if I do a good enough job so I better make sure I do a good job and what about the the self-belief I mean there's something magic about naivety when you're 14 right if I asked you at 14 do you believe you'll be a Formula One driver or an F1 world champion what would you have said um honestly probably no really yeah Yeah, I was realistic and I think until I got to F2, my goal, I always kind of split into my dream and my goal. My dream was always to be an F1 driver, but my goal was always to just be a professional racing driver.

13:06I just wanted to race cars for a living. I didn't really mind if it was an F1 car, a supercar in Australia, GT cars, IndyCar even, although with age, I'm not so sure I'd go race IndyCar now. But I wanted to be a professional racing driver and I was very realistic that my chances of getting to F1 are incredibly small. So I'd kind of accepted that from a young age, but I also thought even if I don't make it to F1, I'm just going to get as far as I can up the junior ladder and if I don't make it, then hopefully there's an opportunity that comes from racing in F3 or F2 and I didn't really let myself kind of dare to turn that dream into a goal until I got to F2 and started to fight for the championship there that I went, okay, the next, and even then it was kind of more a logical step of going, okay, well, the next thing, if this goes well, say if I win this year, the only step left is F1.

14:11rather than going like, I'm in F2 now. Okay, now I really want to get to F1. It was kind of, okay, well, things are still going well in the junior ranks, so the next step is F1 and that's a pretty cool place to land. So I was very realistic early on that the chances of making it happen were going to be small. But, you know, I guess the saying of, well, somebody's got to do it is very much true. And I think when you're a kid, it seems very far away. And that kind of feeling of, you know, someone does have to fill those seats on the grid feels incredibly distant and hard to achieve. But as you get a little bit closer, you go, okay, I can actually be one of the people to do this.

14:58I also think that self-belief is such an important tool in someone's, you know, armour. We've had over 400 conversations on this show and so often the people that we sit and speak to tell us that they believed it before it happened because otherwise it would never have happened. So now you've been this close to making it happen, do you believe you will one day be a Formula 1 world champion? I think so, yes. Again, I guess I may be a little bit different in that I don't spend that much time thinking about the kind of... or I try not to anyway, about the hypotheticals or, you know, of course I want to become a Formula 1 world champion, but I try and look at it from a very realistic point of view.

15:48And, you know, that's a combination of, you know, I need to do my job, but in this sport for good or bad, if you don't have the car to achieve it, then you can kind of believe you're going to be F1 world champion all you want. But if you don't have the best car or one of the best cars, then again, you can believe that it's going to happen all you want, but it's probably not going to happen. So I think for me, that's more where I come from is just that sense of realism. And I'm a big believer in just trying to do the most with what you've got. And, you know, take Suzuka this year, for example. you look at it in the history books in 10 years and I'll say, okay, I finished second and at this point I've won nine F1 races.

16:39But honestly, I would probably put that second place higher in my list of personal achievements than probably 50 % of those wins that I've had so far. Just because I know that I didn't leave anything on the table on that weekend. I got the absolute most out of myself from practice. I got very close to the absolute most in qualifying. I got the absolute most out of the race and we were quick enough to finish second. Me and the car and the team, that was all we had. And again, the history books would say I got beaten by 15 seconds. But that's where our sport is a little bit funny and where you have to be very disciplined in kind of focusing on the right things because, again, I left that weekend happier than I probably left half the races I've won in my career.

17:32And that's a really big, important factor for me is making sure you leave every weekend, knowing that you've done absolutely everything that you can, regardless of whether you've won the race, whether you've finished 10th, whether you've finished 15th even. As long as you can leave the weekend knowing that I did absolutely everything I could in my control, that's good enough for me. So when we talk about belief, right? Do you remember the moment that you went from turning up on a Thursday thinking, I hope things go my way and I get a decent result to turning up on a Thursday thinking, if I do my job, I know I win this race?

18:09Probably after Melbourne last year. Right.

18:15Again, in the history books, I finished ninth and it wasn't a race filled with great memories. But I left that weekend knowing that I'd taken a big step forward from the year before. I knew I still had some steps and improvements to make, but I knew that I was really close to just being able to kind of maximize my potential. I think through my first two years of F1, there was always a bit of a lingering feeling of a little bit of hope, a little bit of, you know, I need to do something a little bit extra or I need to do something a bit special. But after Melbourne in 2025, I knew within myself and especially after China when I won, I knew that as long as I got close to my potential, that I could win races.

19:08And obviously a big part of that comes from the car that you're in. And especially the first half of the season, I knew that if I got close to my potential, then realistically, I probably only had to beat Lando. And that was it, which, you know, it's not an easy task, but it's a little bit easier when you've only got to worry about one or two people. Obviously, Max was back in the picture later in the year, but 2025 was the first time in F1, at least, where I went, you know, if I get close to my potential here, I'm going to win. And when you go back to those first few races of last season, you're winning them, you're leading the championship, like it looks easy from the outside.

19:47I'm really interested from behind the visor, how different does the job and the sport feel when that's the way that it's looking and the way that it's falling? Do you know what I mean? Yes, I do. It's a double-edged sword, I would say. There's obviously the confidence you get from that and just the enjoyment. At the end of the day, we're all here on the grid because we're trying to win races and eventually championships. So there's a lot of enjoyment that comes with that. I guess there's also kind of the expectation or the building expectation of trying to keep that going. and at certain points last year, finishing second was almost kind of the worst place I could finish because I got beaten by my teammate probably and our car was a lot better than everyone else's on certain weekends and I didn't do a good enough job basically.

20:51So when finishing second feels like a bad weekend, it's tough and important to kind of look at it in a more holistic way and go, okay, yeah, it wasn't a good weekend or whatever in the grand scheme of things, but I still just finished second in an F1 race thinking I probably didn't do as good of a job as I should have or I could have. So yeah, it's a double-edged sword and you've got to be careful to not get carried away either. What's the secret to that? Because I remember watching thinking, I wonder whether even after four or five races, whether you were thinking, thinking, I think I might win the world title this year, and how dangerous it is for your brain to go there, which is the most natural human thing in the world, isn't it?

21:36Yes, I think there was definitely thoughts of, I don't think there was ever really the thoughts of, I'm going to win the world championship, or if there was, if there were, I was very quick to go, calm yourself down, because there's a long way to go. but I again like after Melbourne I knew within myself that it was within my power to win the world championship I didn't necessarily think or you know I wasn't certain it was going to happen but I knew that if and it's a big if, if you did a good enough job and if certain things go the right way then it can happen so So I think that was more the belief.

22:27And again, there's a good quote from Nicky Lauda that I saw this morning actually from the Lourdes Awards where he dedicated his award to the losers and saying that he always learned so much more in losing than in winning, which I think is true. And it's very, very hard to find, you know, when you lose a race because of a mistake or because of something you did badly, it stares at you in the face pretty obviously. But if you've won a race and there was things that didn't go that well, you've got to look a bit harder to go, okay, this still wasn't great. This wasn't great. And, you know, Miami for me last year was a perfect example where I won the race, but I started fourth.

23:14I went into the race going, there's no way I'm going to win this thing starting from fourth. A few things went my way. Our car was incredibly quick in Miami. And I knew that I'd done a good job of kind of the circumstances I got dealt with in the race and was able to win. But I knew that if I, like, I could do that once or twice or three times in the year out of 24 races and maybe get away with it. But I could not win a championship based on weekends like that. In what respect? I didn't do a good enough job before that. I think in the race I did a good job. But people would look at that and go, well, you won the race.

23:52What do you mean you didn't do a good enough job? What does winning a race and not doing a good enough job actually look like to you? I think in that one specifically, mainly qualifying. Qualifying is such a big part of Formula One that in 95 % of the races, I would say, starting fourth, you're not going to win the race, especially when you've got a competitive teammate alongside you. And Lando was starting ahead of me. you know, there was races last year where I think we both pretty much knew that whoever was leading at the end of the first lap out of us two, it was more than likely going to stay that way.

24:31So that's a really important part. And I knew that I hadn't done a good job in qualifying and that if I was qualifying fourth every weekend, again, I could do that once or twice and have a bit of action go on and take advantage of it. But I couldn't rely on that basically. And, And, you know, the next weekend I tried to improve my qualifying and the rest of the year tried to do the same. And that sets up your race. And, yeah, just trying to make life as easy as possible for yourself. That was the biggest thing. We'll be right back after a quick word from our partners. Are you a trailblazer? A risk taker?

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27:38Inside the Saracens rugby jersey, we had their captain Maro Itoji on the show recently. They have the letters T-S-T-T-N-S. The shit that nobody sees is the acronym that that stands for. What is the shit that nobody sees in your world that you think makes you a better driver? Oh, that makes me a better driver.

28:05I think it's probably, I mean, it covers so many things, But I think it's the hard work and the data we go through, the kind of preparation we do, which, you know, obviously no one sees because we never share it because it's sensitive information, right? So I don't know if people will ever really be able to appreciate that, but it's a bit different in that racing is very different to a lot of sports like tennis, for example. If you want to go get better at tennis, your number one thing you're going to do is go on a court and hit some balls. Can't do that with racing. The closest thing we've got is a simulator.

28:56later, it gets close. But when you talk about the really detailed, minute things you're trying to change, I'm not sure simulators will ever quite get to that point. So it's the kind of discussions you have with your engineers. It's the squiggly lines. We look through the data traces, whether it be the mental work we do, the physical training. I think the physical training people probably understand because people can relate to that a lot more. But, you know, sitting in a simulator for five hours, testing different roll bars or downforce levels and stuff, it's very hard for people that haven't driven a race car to relate to that or, you know, trying this driving style change or whatever.

29:48So I think it's just the amount of kind of, in some ways, the mental effort that goes into preparing the limited physical time you have in a race car. Because, you know, even on a race weekend, especially a sprint race weekend, for example, and especially with these new regulations of cars, you know, if you go into the session going, okay, let's see what happens and we'll go from there, you're going to be absolutely nowhere. and you need to do that time in the simulator. You need to discuss through different setup ideas. You need to discuss through different driving ideas so that when you're on that track for an hour, and I guess what people also maybe sometimes don't see is we have a one-hour practice session, but we've got two sets of tyres per practice session essentially.

30:44One of them is generally a soft tyre, which is good for one lap or two laps. So maybe two. So you've got all that preparation time to prepare qualifying is going into effectively, let's say three minutes on the track. And you've got to be so prepared and put so much effort into being able to do that in real time alongside trying to drive a race car at however many hundreds of kilometers an hour. So I think that's probably the shit that no one sees. And are you the kind of guy that will share everything with a teammate and want them to know everything or are you more protective of your insight?

31:24Generally, yes. And I think it's the way of just modern teams anyway, especially at McLaren, that's the way it's going to be whether I want it to be or not. And I think it is a very good way of going about things because it goes in a circle, right? Of course, if you find something special that you think that no one else has found, you're going to want to try and keep that to yourself. But we've got hundreds of people working in our team. Other teams have got the same. We've got onboards, GPS. There's no secrets. You can't hide. And again, it goes the opposite way as well. You know, if you're in that position where someone else has done something and you go, oh, I need to work out how to do that, you want as many tools at your disposal as you can get.

32:20So, yeah, I think everyone probably has their little moments where they go, okay, I want to keep that one to myself. But at the end of the day, if you start going down that route, eventually it'll bite you when you probably least want it. The teammate dynamic is so interesting. you and Lando went toe to toe for the title last year how different does that relationship become when you both know okay one of us is now going to win the world title

32:51in all honesty I don't think it really changed really which I don't think anyone really believes or struggles to believe I think it's very much down to how we are as people, I think we're both quite good at, you know, separating kind of the people and what happens on the racetrack versus off the racetrack. You know, our marketing days that we had to do together, for example, were exactly the same. Probably, if anything, you know, like we get asked about our relationship as teammates quite a lot. and I think probably it was actually better at the back end of last year than it was say the first six months that we were getting to know each other just because we know each other more and we spend so much time around one another every year.

33:49So it really didn't change much because I think we both knew the situation we were in of trying to beat each other and only one of us could win. We knew all of that, but it never got nasty. And I think that's a really important thing because I think it would have been very easy for last year to have got nasty. And, well, it would have been probably the, you know, if it really got bad, the question of whether one of us was even sat here doing this interview wearing orange. But I think just the team dynamics is so important to protect going forwards. And obviously we've not quite started this year the way we want, but it would have been so easy for the battle of last year to make it look 10 times worse and 10 times worse for a long time.

34:51So I think we both knew that as well. And you should be proud, actually, of the fact that you both went through that pressure cooker. Yeah. And you're both here, and you're okay with each other. I think it's not easy for that to outcome. Yeah, and I think, again, I think we obviously had a couple times where we came together, but there was never, you know, I think in kind of title battles, especially between teammates that have kind of turned sour, there's normally been some element of games or trying to hide stuff or something like that. And I think for both of us, we're just not really like that.

35:33But also we've seen that play out as well. And I think it doesn't take much to get into that sequence of, you know, I'm going to do this. and then the teammate goes, oh, well, okay, I know you did that so I'm going to do this and then it just escalates and I think for both of us, even if we did have problems, I think they were never intentional and even if we felt like we'd crossed the line, either we were good, we never had to confront each other but I think we both kind of knew if we'd crossed the line ourselves and went, my bad, and the team held us accountable for that as well. So, yeah, I think we had a good system to keep things friendly.

36:25What was the biggest lesson from the toughest moment last season?

36:32I mean, there was a few tough moments. I think, I guess the pressure in some ways from different angles, When you're ahead in the championship, you're doing something right. That's why you have the lead, but you're also the one being hunted. If you're behind and you're trying to maintain that advantage so you can only look behind in some ways. So it's difficult to not do that. But then when you're behind, of course, you've got the mentality of being the hunter, but you've also got the gap to close. You've got to close it. and I think just the kind of dynamics of that a little bit maybe was a bit of an eye-opener it was obviously a very long season so which is more natural for you to be the hunter or the hunted I think the hunted I've always enjoyed being in that position because again I've said it a few times generally that means you're doing something right or something better than the people you're racing against and I guess there's that confidence of generally you're probably in that position because you've won races or been on the podium a lot or things like that if it's chopping and changing every single race then yeah if you're the hunted by two points then it's a bit different if it's by 30.

38:08But for me, that's always been a nice position because you've got a little bit of buffer and you've got the races and the results to back up that position normally. So I think that was probably the biggest thing. And then, yeah, there was a few technical things, a few tracks at the end of the year where I had to drive the car very differently that I probably didn't get on top of as quickly as I should have. Probably some things as a team we'd do again in a slightly different way as well. So, you know, there's little bits everywhere. There wasn't one glaringly obvious thing, but you put enough of those things together and sometimes it doesn't quite happen.

38:54No, indeed. And how are you recovering from these moments? I think generally pretty good. Definitely the few days after Abu Dhabi weren't the most enjoyable in my life. But I think in some ways having such a big reset this year was a good thing because I think for me I kind of reflected on last year and firstly, obviously, again, going back to looking at things when you're winning versus losing, you obviously look at the things that were painful and the mistakes and then reflect it on the things that were good and the things I want to try and maintain for this year. And then once you do that, then the challenge of the regulations this year was so massive going into it that for good or bad, you almost didn't have time to dwell on last season that much, which was perfect for me because I didn't, you know, I had the kind of two weeks in Australia to see my family, see my friends, reflect on 2025, and then get stuck into the challenge of this year.

40:12And, you know, obviously the first two races this year didn't go well in that I didn't start them. But I think Japan was in some ways a more just reflection of where I feel like I'm at this season and the hard work we put in the off-season, the way I kind of switched my focus from last year into this new challenge this year. I think that was a really helpful thing for me to be able to just focus all my energy on. So yeah, I've enjoyed in some ways having the new challenge In some ways, it's been a bit of a headache. But yeah, for me, I felt like I used my time efficiently to reflect on last year, but then channeled that energy or any motivation I had from last year, let's say, into attacking the new challenge.

41:07Do you remember when you made that switch? Because we've spoken to some people on this show who are like, but I give myself 48 hours and I can be the grumpiest, most horrible person on the planet for that amount of time. other people they just kind of let it be there until they feel better i don't know what your approach is to dealing with those really difficult moments i would say it's more just letting it be there i think it's it's very hard to force things in general yeah um and you know you could perfectly say to yourself that, you know, okay, I'm going to give myself, you know, until midnight on Sunday night.

41:48And when it gets to 12.01 on Monday morning, I'm going to reset myself. But you could have a thought at 12.05 going, damn, I wish I didn't do that in this race or this race. And like, you know, we're human. We don't work by just switching off. And, you know, I think you kind of have to deal with your emotions and your feelings when they happen. And that's, I guess, part of being human is you don't always know when that's going to happen. So for me, it was kind of just feel it out. And, you know, even now there's still the odd thought of doesn't even necessarily need to be last year. It could be races or, you know, we all have moments, embarrassing moments in our life where, you know, you have an interaction with someone, you go, oh, I wish I had have said this instead of this or you know those random thoughts they happen about everything so um yeah for me it's just dealing with them when they come up rather than trying to force a time period um because yeah you never know when they're going to come up but it's you know it's always how you deal with those things rather than trying to shut them out and pretend they're not there and do you work with a therapist or a mental coach or anyone like that?

43:05Mental coach, yes. Her name's Emma Murray. I've worked with her for quite a while now. And, yeah, she's done work with different AFL clubs in Australia and various other athletes. So we've known each other for a while. And yeah, I think for me, I've always felt like my natural mental strength has been pretty strong. I maybe didn't always necessarily know that. And I maybe needed some tough situations or people like Emma to tell me sometimes. but I think there's been elements of that that come naturally and elements of that that are definitely kind of practiced and worked on as well. And what's the best either piece of advice she's given you for some work that you can do mentally to keep yourself in a good place or maybe, I don't know, most of this stuff should rightly stay private, like maybe something that she said where it's just made such sense to you that you think it might be helpful for people listening to this to hear?

44:17I mean, there's lots of great pieces of advice I could give. But I think, you know, maybe some people think of kind of mental performance or even mental health for that matter as trying to be positive all the time or, you know, just look at things through a very positive lens. But I think, again, going back to the kind of giving yourself a set time or trying to force things like, I guess to put it bluntly, if something's shit, there's no point trying to say it's not shit. Yeah. You know, it's not fooling anyone. You know, you're not fooling yourself if you do that. So to put it more politely, you know, if you're in a tough situation or something bad's happened, there's no point trying to tell yourself that it's good or, you know, that it's not bad necessarily.

45:16You know, there might be a silver lining to things that you'll always find and it's always important to try and find those. But to, you know, if you crash out of a race, like if you try and say, oh, well, it wasn't that bad or it was good actually. Clearly it wasn't. Like, and I think there's always, yeah, just being honest and real is probably the biggest thing, just letting your emotions out, but then being able to do something about it. And, you know, that's kind of how I always was anyway, or how I am is, you know, I think emotions are, I phrased this in a way before that I want to change a bit now.

46:05And I think I phrased it that emotions are rarely helpful. and I still kind of believe that to a sense but I think they are helpful as long as you know how to control them, how to deal with them and channel them in the right way. I think that's a really important part of it and I think for me, again, it's about what you can control and what you can't control. If I've got a problem and I can do something about it and I can fix it, then I'll fix it. if I can't fix it then okay depending on the size of the problem sometimes you go I really wish I could fix that but at a certain point you have to go I can't fix it I'm gonna focus on something else that I can fix and you know that applies in racing and applies in life and I think generally it makes me feel a bit more comfortable sometimes I mean I think it's I think it's so interesting and you certainly sound wise beyond your years.

47:03I remember talking to Johanna Conte, the former British number one tennis player. She spoke similar to this. She said that if your resistance to life is a 10, even if life is giving you the challenge of a two, if your resistance is a 10, it's 20. So if life is giving you a challenge of a 10 and your resistance is a 10, that's a big issue. Whereas if your resistance to life is zero, right, then the challenge can be 10. 10 times zero remains zero. So in your career, your reaction to anything, whether it is what happened in Monza or Baku or what happened at the end of the season or what happened in Japan whether it's good or bad, negative or positive more than what matters more than any of those things is your own personal reaction to those things I agree and I think again it's kind of along everything I've kind of said I always try to take the results out of it and think of have I done a good job of the things I can control if you get a penalty from the stewards you can complain about it, cry about it all you want but is that actually going to help you?

48:08If you get a penalty on lap one of a 50 lap race you've got two options especially with a stewards hit penalty they're never going to change it so either you can complain about it for the next 50 laps and say how unfair it was or you can go, okay, I've got this penalty. Let me try and, there's a fine line. You probably shouldn't say try and drive even faster because you're trying to drive as fast as you can. But I've got this penalty. It is what it is. Let me try and do my job. And if I do a good enough job, maybe I'll be able to overcome that penalty. Maybe I won't. You're not going to know. But all I can do now is try and do the best job that I can.

48:55I tell you, when you make me laugh, I know when you're getting news in the cockpit that's pissed you off because there's no response. Isn't it? I'm like, when's he going to say something? There's always like five seconds of silence where you're like processing what information are you giving me here? Yes, it depends. If I think I can have some element of influence or control in the situation, then yes, I will say something. But if I know that I could talk for the next half an hour and it's not going to change a single thing, I'm not going to waste the energy. I'm just going to focus my energy on something I can do that might help me get over that situation.

49:43And when things are tense and difficult, who in the world of F1 can you lean on?

49:50Mark, definitely. I think Oh actually I have a question about Mark do you mind if I play this is from a I don't know whether you know Rob or not but we do an F1 podcast called High Performance Racing and he had a question for you which relates to this so Yeah Hey Oscar it's Rob Smedley so the question I wanted to ask you was what is it like getting managed off my old mate Mark Webber is he a taskmaster and how has your relationship changed with him since you came in as a rookie

50:23the relationship's good very thorough is Mark I think how's it changed I think you know when I first got into F1 I think Mark was you know coming up with questions and ideas that literally hadn't even entered my brain and like I would hear him say it and go like how the hell did he think of that? Or like, how am I ever going to think of that? And I think just with experience, I'm, you know, I'm still, you know, we're always learning every day. But I think, you know, now starting my fourth year, I have either the answers to a lot of those kind of questions that I wouldn't have had in the first couple of years, or I know the questions to keep asking, which just comes with experience and I think you know there's naturally less and less for Mark to do on a racing side of things the more experienced I become but I think especially in the first couple of years just the kind of you know there's some lessons you have to learn the hard way and there's no other way of doing it but I'm sure there could have been plenty of other slightly annoying or tough lessons to learn that, you know, I was probably spared because of Mark's experience and Mark's guidance.

51:52So yeah, there's probably always going to be, you know, situations or things that have gone smoothly that, or almost problems that weren't problems that I'm never going to know about because Mark managed them for me. So yeah, I think that's probably how it's changed in the last few years. But you don't rely on any other fellow drivers for any advice or support? No, not really. I mean, I think going back to kind of relationships with different people on the grid, I think especially now in F1 there's a massive level of respect between all the drivers. but having respect for one another and being friends with one another are two very different things.

52:45And I think, you know, for me it's always hard to be genuine friends with somebody that 24 times a year you've got to go on track and prove that you're better than them basically or compete against them. and I think that's why probably a lot of some of the closest friendships in racing are between racing drivers that are in two different series or that have been teammates whether it be in the junior ranks or ex-teammates in F1 that are now no longer either in the same team racing as each other or kind of at different ends of the grid because there's not the same competitive tension between the two of them So I get on with a lot of the drivers and there's definitely some I'm more friendly with than others.

53:43But again, some ex-teammates that I've had in the junior ranks because we're not racing against each other anymore. We can relate to each other a lot because we're both racing drivers, both doing the same job in different series. so there's a lot to talk about and now there's not that awkwardness of going, oh, well, I really want to talk to you about this but if I talk to you about it, is it going to give you ideas on how you can beat me next time and all of those kind of things. So it's a tricky old business. Well, look, for someone that doesn't like sitting down and talking too much, I thought that was really interesting, mate.

54:19So thank you so much for giving me so much of your time. Really enjoyed it. Nice to finally meet you. Yes, nice to meet you too. Thanks, mate.

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