The Peter Attia Drive - #16 - Formula 1 (with Paul Conti)： the best drivers, Ayrton Senna, and the cautionary tales of driven individuals

00:00:00.000 Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Peter Atiyah Drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah.

00:00:10.160 The drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking,

00:00:15.600 along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working with

00:00:19.840 some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world. And this podcast

00:00:23.620 is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality,

00:00:28.360 more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode

00:00:33.020 and other topics at peteratiyahmd.com.

00:00:41.380 Welcome to the bonus episode of The Drive. My guest for this episode is my dear friend,

00:00:47.860 Dr. Paul Conti, who is not only the most brilliant psychiatrist I've ever met, but also one of the

00:00:53.720 most amazing Formula One fans. Paul and I, on this relatively short episode, at least short for

00:00:59.480 the metrics of this podcast, we just go on and talk about all of our favorite things in Formula One.

00:01:05.180 But primarily, we talk about the history of Formula One and who are the drivers that we've

00:01:10.360 loved the most. And of course, one of the things that we discuss in this podcast is that Paul and

00:01:14.420 I have a number of things in common, not the least of which is our birthday, but our love for

00:01:18.800 Ayrton Senna. And so we talk at length about Senna. And I, again, I think some of you who might be

00:01:23.900 thinking, well, I'm not really that interested in Formula One or driving. I still think you'll find a

00:01:27.560 lot interesting because one of the things that Paul does in this episode is he ties into this

00:01:32.600 discussion of the great Formula One drivers, a lot of the psychological component of what made them

00:01:39.180 great and what draws us to them. I will say that, well, as I've talked about before, my son,

00:01:45.800 one of my sons named after Ayrton Senna. And I remember when I suggested to my wife that we

00:01:51.540 should name him, name our son after Senna, her first thought was who? And then her second thought

00:01:57.600 was what? But over about six months of this pregnancy, as she got to learn more and more

00:02:02.940 about Senna, she was kind enough to humor me as I exposed her to Senna and his greatness.

00:02:09.060 She not only came around, but really not only fell in love with the name, but fell in love with the

00:02:13.800 idea of Senna and the man that he was. So not that we have any expectation that our son will go on to

00:02:18.860 be a race car driver, but needless to say, little Ayrton is a special little guy and he's named after

00:02:24.500 someone that I've looked up to and hold in a very high regard. And so I think in this episode,

00:02:29.540 we get into some of why that's the case and also some of the other just luminaries of this sport.

00:02:35.480 So you won't probably learn more about the relevance of Formula One in a shorter period of time than you

00:02:41.060 will in this podcast. And again, even if you're not interested in driving, I really encourage you

00:02:44.760 to listen to this because it will likely spark some interest. And I think the show notes have some

00:02:49.320 amazing links to things that if anybody gets an itch scratched by this, they're going to dig a little

00:02:54.760 bit further. So with that, welcome to the first, what I would call bonus episode of The Drive,

00:03:00.800 where Paul Conte and I spend a little bit of time going deep on our favorite topic outside of

00:03:08.640 living better and living longer. So Paul, we have a lot of things in common, not the least of which

00:03:16.100 is our birthday. We share the same birthday, which is great because you're one of the few people whose

00:03:20.800 birthdays I remember. I just, I'm like a moron when it comes to birthdays. I have like an encyclopedic 0.99

00:03:26.580 memory of many things except for birthdays. But of course, every time I wake up, usually you're

00:03:33.060 calling me to wish me a happy birthday, which is reminding me that it's my birthday. I usually wake

00:03:39.140 up to a text from you. The other thing we have in common is a, I think what can only be described

00:03:45.000 as an obsession with arguably, though I would say it's not arguably definitively the greatest driver

00:03:51.420 in the history of driving. I remember it was one of the first things we bonded over when we got to

00:03:55.280 medical school, because at that point it had only been three years since Senna's death.

00:03:59.420 Uh-huh. Amazing. And for those of us who, you know, cherished him, it's a day that all of us

00:04:05.660 remember, you know, Sunday, May 1st, 1994. What is it about Senna that you loved so much?

00:04:12.720 I'll try not to be long-winded, but to answer both facets of that. On the one hand, I'm not sure that

00:04:19.380 I'm aware of anyone, certainly not in a way that I observed and experienced with interest as it unfolded,

00:04:27.240 right? Who has been more single-minded about achievement. You know, this is a person who

00:04:35.460 did absolutely everything that was required for not just the highest level of achievement,

00:04:44.680 but for moving that bar of what the highest level of achievement means. And for people who

00:04:50.360 don't follow, like, what Formula One was then, is this is not like somebody sitting in a car and

00:04:56.420 just driving it around, right? The physical stamina, you know, the training, the ability to control

00:05:04.520 oneself physically and mentally, right? The ability to hone reflexes and to multitask in ways that push

00:05:16.280 executive function, push mind and body to the very limits, I've never seen anyone do that. And

00:05:23.320 that's complemented by his incredibly intense passion. I mean, this is someone who, yes,

00:05:30.400 was very religious, but that religiosity, I believe, was expressed in passion for people who were

00:05:39.500 suffering in his home country, right? He was Brazilian. And, you know, he was born wealthy, born

00:05:45.940 privileged, yet had such a sense for the struggle of people who were up against things that he wasn't

00:05:54.860 up against. And I believe that that unity with people who didn't have, you know, even one billionth of

00:06:03.040 the things that he had into money, fame, adulation. But I don't believe that he felt any different. I

00:06:09.880 believe he felt fortunate and he felt a sense of almost messianic drive to be the best and make

00:06:17.100 things better for people. And that leads to the second facet, which is ultimately, that was his

00:06:23.060 undoing. He died in the context of that drive, right? Of that inability to step back from the brink even a

00:06:30.660 little bit. So I think that he's a model for the best in us. And also that we can have so many good

00:06:38.520 qualities and ultimately be the architects of our own downfall by not being able to step back and

00:06:46.320 realize our own humanity. Like he didn't think he was better than anyone else. But there was another

00:06:50.960 level in which I think he believed because of it was so incumbent upon him to make things better for

00:06:59.480 everyone else that he had to be superhuman, right? I mean, it's a way of not feeling better than

00:07:06.700 everyone else in an arrogant way, but feeling better in a way that isolates us and means that there's

00:07:11.820 always more to do and we never get to rest. Right. There was more responsibility on, he felt, I get the

00:07:17.480 sense, of course, never having never met him, but just having read everything that one could read about

00:07:21.820 him and watching every video and documentary, he felt the weight of a nation on his shoulders.

00:07:27.300 Exactly. Yes. And if you feel the weight of a nation on your shoulders and you don't realize

00:07:34.540 that that just has to be a shared responsibility, but you take that all on yourself, then you can

00:07:40.260 inadvertently be the architect of your own demise. I don't think many people realized until after his

00:07:47.060 death how much he gave back to Brazil. He kept a lot of that secret. He had a lot of education for

00:07:53.520 underprivileged children in the, you know, in the inland part of Brazil. I mean, so, so, I mean,

00:07:59.340 it's just one example of so much of what he did was so humble, you know, and, and I mean, it's very

00:08:04.840 interesting, you know, Sid Watkins, right. Who was the great neurosurgeon, right. Who, who also was by the

00:08:10.580 greatest understanding of the personalities of these incredibly driven people, you know, just described

00:08:16.820 a serene humility in him that this was someone who lived an unobtrusive life when left to his own

00:08:24.880 devices to live it. And you put them on camera, you could say, okay, look, here's lifestyles of the

00:08:28.600 rich and famous. That's not who he was inside. And it's, it's, you know, it's fascinating to know

00:08:34.080 that, that amidst that peace and tranquility was such a desperation to do things that were superhuman.

00:08:40.680 And there's a lesson in that, right. The lesson that goes back to mythology, right. Of

00:08:43.820 flying too close to the sun. Right. And it is a lesson for people who I think have great abilities

00:08:52.120 and great perseverance and great ability to torment themselves in order to continue to persevere that

00:08:59.340 if we don't recognize our limits, um, we run great risk of not achieving our goals. And then Ayrton

00:09:06.180 Senna who lived to be 90 could have done what, how much for Brazil, how much for the world. So I,

00:09:12.400 I see him as really amongst the greatest of us for his capability, his drive, his compassion,

00:09:20.700 his just living in shared humanity. But I also see him as emblematic of the foibles that are,

00:09:27.480 you know, not just foibles, the dangers that we can represent to ourselves and the need for

00:09:32.900 not just humility about ourselves, but also for compassion about ourselves. And like, look,

00:09:38.020 there's a limit and we got to take care of ourselves if we're going to know if we're going to keep

00:09:42.640 going for ourselves and for whatever it is that we care about.

00:09:45.860 Virtually every formula one driver today. So you look at the heroes of today, Lewis Hamilton,

00:09:51.300 Sebastian Vettel, Ricardo, all of these guys, if asked almost without exception to a man,

00:09:57.040 they'll all say the same thing that Senna's death has been the single most important change in formula

00:10:03.020 one. It was the turning point in the safety of that sport. Do you remember what they found in

00:10:08.800 his car when he died at Imola? Do you remember with a flag, what he had? They found that the,

00:10:13.080 the Austrian flag, which is unusual. Why would a Brazilian have been carrying the Austrian flag 0.99

00:10:18.360 on the day he died? A person who's like every cell was about Brazil had an Austrian flag. And of

00:10:24.660 course we know that the day before that Roland Ratzenberger was Austrian had died in a formula one car

00:10:30.420 and how shocking and distressing that was to Ayrton Senna and his drive to win that race. Why? I mean,

00:10:40.760 everything he wanted to win was to be the best and to glorify Brazil, right? Here it was about,

00:10:47.820 I think, such an intense compassion for this person's loss of life that I think it blinded him to the

00:10:55.740 limits, to even his own limits. I mean, even, you know, he had limits, right? We all have limits.

00:11:00.040 And I think it blinded him to those limits. And I think subsequently, it's just my opinion,

00:11:05.540 it's blinded formula one to, in a sense, the, the need for some element of danger to allow people

00:11:13.060 to distinguish themselves. And, you know, that might sound like an odd thing to say is coming

00:11:17.840 from the perspective of preserving life. Right. But, but I think that, you know, there were times when

00:11:23.220 that sport was way too dangerous and just way too many people lost their lives, but to go so far to

00:11:29.840 uniformatize it and to try and eliminate danger, some of what has been eliminated was, you know,

00:11:37.720 the, the limits of human ambition and human bravery that I think were an important part of

00:11:44.400 distinguishing people who really were heroes. And in part, they were heroes because they were taking

00:11:50.900 some risks. And again, I'm not a fan of let's bring back, you know, 25 or 30% of formula one

00:11:56.940 drivers are dying behind the wheel. I mean, obviously that is, that's not okay, but there's

00:12:01.700 been such a push in the other direction. And I think that there was just really a terror in the

00:12:06.180 sport. It was a terror that see that, that then sought to eliminate, you know, the, the opportunity

00:12:12.560 to push oneself too far. But I think in doing so, there's a, there's an arena of human endeavor

00:12:18.480 that can be tremendously inspiring that I think was, I think was changed too much. And I think,

00:12:26.900 you know, people don't have as much, they don't have the opportunity to be Ayrton Senna. Right.

00:12:31.480 And I think in some ways, in order to have the opportunity to be him, there, there has to be the

00:12:35.700 opportunity to take the risks that he took and hopefully to learn from his example and take them

00:12:40.280 in a way that results in, in excellence and survival. But I think the sport in many ways has

00:12:46.500 taken away that, that ability. And I think part of why people hearken back to that is it was a

00:12:51.500 turning point that really changed the sport. I think in a way, too many ways. Yeah. It's

00:12:56.400 interesting. I don't know that era just seems remarkable. I mean, when you think about the

00:13:01.200 rivalries that existed, you know, Mansell and PK and Prost and Senna, it was, I don't know,

00:13:08.480 it's hard to say. I mean, like I could talk about Formula One forever. I know you and I think you

00:13:13.280 and I actually have, we actually have done this, but, but there really is something about the sort

00:13:18.460 of the mid eighties to, to mid nineties. That was kind of a remarkable year. I mean, I, again,

00:13:24.020 not that it's about the championships because many people will still look at Jill Villeneuve having

00:13:28.860 never won a championship as one of the greatest drivers ever. And we should spend, we could park that

00:13:32.980 for a moment on the side, but I really do. So first of all, even though Senna won only quote

00:13:38.680 unquote three championships, in my mind, he won four. So the disqualification in the Japanese Grand

00:13:43.760 Prix, I look at that disqualification the same way I look at the Hagler Leonard fight, which is just,

00:13:49.840 they just, they made a bad call. There is no way he should have been disqualified in that. And so

00:13:54.820 he died as a four time champion. But if you do the math on it, you realize that the season he died,

00:14:01.620 which was the third race of the 1994 season, even though the Williams car was a fraction of what

00:14:07.220 it was the year before, what most people don't realize is Hill went on his teammate, Damon Hill

00:14:15.000 went on to finish second to Schumacher that season by a point. Basically it came down to the last race,

00:14:21.900 which tells you that a lot of the kinks that were going on in the Williams car of that year,

00:14:26.620 uh, we're getting worked out. Yeah. In other words, had Senna not died, I'm positive he would 0.65

00:14:31.580 have been the 1994 world champion. And I suspect he would have been the world champion all the way

00:14:37.120 till about 97 because you did, you ultimately had Villeneuve, Jacques Villeneuve won in 97,

00:14:43.240 Damon Hill won in what, 96, all in the Williams car. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is, so people talk

00:14:50.980 about, well, okay, you know, many years later, Schumacher went on to win so many championships

00:14:54.700 and that's, that's impressive. I think most people still consider Senna the greatest driver of all time,

00:14:59.060 but you know, Senna could have won seven world championships in an era when that was unheard

00:15:04.320 of. Right. I mean, you, you have to look at any achievement by era, right? I mean, think about

00:15:09.680 Fangio won five world championships in a time when most people like didn't survive five seasons,

00:15:14.600 right? You couldn't live. So, so how can you compare that to a time when safety was at such a height and

00:15:20.500 the Ferrari was a dominant car? I mean, like, you know, you can't, there's a comparison then that

00:15:25.220 truly is apples and oranges. And that era of like mid eighties to mid nineties, you know,

00:15:31.480 was an era of like incredibly fast machines and machines that weren't always on parody,

00:15:37.740 but machines that were on parody enough that the driver could make the difference. And you really

00:15:43.880 saw like what I think of as titanic struggles between exceptional personalities. So the same thing

00:15:49.520 that drew me to, you know, the interest in, you know, the people behind the second world war to an

00:15:54.760 interest in like in people who are struggling, whether it's with glory or with no one watching,

00:16:00.120 right? Is the same thing that, that to me was that the attraction of formula one that, you know,

00:16:06.380 you had titanic personalities of Prost, Mansell, Senna. And I think that, you know, it's interesting

00:16:11.960 that Damon Hill won the championship that year. And, and again, I think that the vast majority of people

00:16:16.460 would say he was not the caliber of driver of Mansell, Prost, or Senna, but look at the caliber

00:16:22.360 of human being. I mean, here's a person who grew up with this incredibly dashing debonair father,

00:16:28.780 right? And, you know, you see, and he was around the paddock as an infant, right? And when you see

00:16:33.580 pictures, you know, you see Damon Hill wasn't cut in the mold of his father, right? He's probably cut

00:16:38.360 more in the mold of his mother. You know, you see these pictures of him kind of standing close to his

00:16:41.960 mother, looking in awe at his father. Yeah. Who just looked like a movie star, right? I mean,

00:16:46.460 he, right. It's what I said, a handlebar mustache and he's a rower. And just, he was

00:16:50.320 such a, you know, a model of what it meant to be a man in that era, right? And despite not naturally

00:16:56.660 having those characteristics, I think physically or personality wise, Damon Hill won the world

00:17:02.640 championship anyway. And like, he went back in that Williams after Senna was killed. You know,

00:17:07.480 I think that, you know, Damon Hill's story is a much quieter story, but I think it's a tremendous

00:17:13.160 story of being an exceptional human. And I think that's what appeals to people who really,

00:17:19.200 you know, love that era of the sport is, I mean, you and I love, we're infinitely infatuated by

00:17:26.100 exceptional people. We want to understand them. We want to learn from them. In some ways we want

00:17:30.660 to venerate them. And I think there's something that's really, there's something that's good about

00:17:34.640 that. But, you know, it kind of, maybe drawing all this together, you know, there's, there's also

00:17:39.640 something in us that I think at times wants to idealize them. And then therefore, in a sense,

00:17:46.140 idealize what we're doing, you know, and the truth is that, you know, Senna's death was avoidable.

00:17:51.340 And I don't mean it was avoidable because they could have made that track dumbed down. It was

00:17:55.760 avoidable if he had driven less fast, I think. You know, I don't know that, I don't remember you

00:17:59.100 and I have really ever talked about this in great detail. I mean, I have a pretty strong point of

00:18:02.100 view on why he died. I'd be curious to know yours. So I think the official answer that came out of

00:18:07.660 the trial was that basically the crash on the first lap that led to the safety car coming out

00:18:13.560 allowed the tires to cool and he basically lost traction. Now I've, you know, there's a,

00:18:19.540 there are a couple of really interesting videos on YouTube that have tried to dissect this in 10

00:18:23.340 different ways. But I got to tell you the theory that I find most compelling, I actually think the

00:18:26.660 steering column broke before he went off the road. Okay. So I actually think, because as you know,

00:18:31.780 Senna modified the steering column in his car. So he had like an extra six inches of a steering

00:18:36.780 column in there and it was well, so there, he had a separate point of weakness in his steering

00:18:41.500 column. And I actually think it broke. And I say that because when you look at the film of the

00:18:46.780 onboard of him going off just before it cuts out, you can see him violently turning the wheel with

00:18:52.980 no effect, but this is before the impact. So there's no dispute that the steering column broke.

00:18:58.320 That's a given. The question is that it break before or after the collision. And if it broke

00:19:02.820 before the collision, it's hard to argue that that's not the single most important

00:19:06.620 part of why he crashed. What's your thought? Again, what do I know? We're fans offering our

00:19:14.920 amateur opinion, but my read of that is different, right? And again, who knows, but you know,

00:19:21.260 think about the Williams before that year, the active suspension. Generally regarded as the single

00:19:27.700 most technologically advanced Formula One car in the history of the sport, including up until this

00:19:32.540 day, even though that was 25 years ago. I mean, you could do one little thing to like put it a tiny

00:19:38.700 bit off balance and the car adjusts. I mean, that car was, was like science fiction in terms of its

00:19:44.540 sophistication. And sure, all the teams were trying to do that, but, but Williams, Williams took it to

00:19:49.020 another level. So then, okay, what happens? They say like, take all that stuff away. And I think through

00:19:53.420 no fault of the Williams or the team, that car was a beast without that, right? Because it was built,

00:19:59.920 right. So it was undriveable. And I think, um, and some of the things, you know, that Damon Hill said

00:20:06.140 about driving were really scary. Like that car was on a knife edge and like, it was a terrifying car to

00:20:10.400 drive. Yeah. Senate did not finish the first two races of the 94 season, even though he was leading

00:20:15.340 both because he just lost control of the car. And when you watch those spin outs, you're like,

00:20:20.080 that's the type of spin out I would do in a car. Like that's not something that the world's best

00:20:25.480 driver would do. Right. Right. Which, which I think means that like most people would say,

00:20:30.800 okay, look, if I'm going to drive this car, cause again, we're talking about a level of talent and

00:20:34.480 bravery that I cannot imagine, right? That, okay, they're going to drive it and they're going to

00:20:38.700 try and drive it fast. But that's a different thing than driving it on the absolute edge.

00:20:43.960 Villeneuve style was, how do you know where the limit is? You go over it and you fly off the track and

00:20:47.280 you figure that out. Like that was not the way to drive that car and survive. And I think that

00:20:51.860 he knew that, but I think he forgot that when Ratzenberger died. And, and I think that that was

00:20:57.700 the cause of the, so you think he went around that corner just a little too quickly. I do

00:21:03.060 given the tires, basically given the tire temperature, is that what you think it came down to?

00:21:07.340 Right. I think given all the complex factors, right, including tire temperature, all the things that

00:21:12.340 had happened, I think he went too fast. And I think that there was sort of the hubris of brilliance

00:21:18.400 and the need to make something right that, you know, to win that race. I mean, imagine Ayrton Senna,

00:21:25.880 had he won that race and then he drives around the track with the Austrian flag. I mean,

00:21:32.060 I am not sure that a human being can be glorified more. I mean, you know, think about at that point,

00:21:39.960 you know what I mean? Senna had a superhuman status. I mean, there were people in lots of

00:21:44.200 places, not just in Brazil that actually felt like maybe he's immortal. If the Brazilians loved him

00:21:48.340 the most, you could, I think you'd have to make the case that the Japanese loved him the second most,

00:21:52.160 right? Absolutely. He was a god in Japan. Absolutely. I mean, as you see those pictures and he's like

00:21:56.520 getting off a plane, people like fainting and, you know, things that, okay, we like saw with the

00:22:00.420 Beatles, but you know, but there was a lot of like hysteria and, you know, around, I'm not trying to

00:22:04.880 say anything negative about people fainting when the Beatles got off the plane, but, but this was like an

00:22:09.580 adulation of a single human being for his tenacity, you know, his, his ability to say like, there's

00:22:16.120 never, there's never enough that's been put into succeeding. So imagine him and the glory that,

00:22:23.760 you know, that he would have brought. Now, again, you could say, well, what's the glory? I mean,

00:22:27.440 you know, does Roland Ratzenberger need the glory, right? But, but it is meaningful. I mean,

00:22:32.140 I think it would have been meaningful in a way of, that no one would have ever forgotten and that

00:22:36.760 would have meant something to his family and his friends and would have meant something forever.

00:22:40.340 I mean, that could have been potentially one of the most memorable moments, if not the most

00:22:43.640 memorable moment in the history of the sport. And I think he was so driven to do that, that he

00:22:49.200 attempted to do something that was superhuman. And I, and I think that cost him his life.

00:22:53.700 You know, there's so many things about that day that just blow my mind. Obviously there are

00:22:57.740 interviews of him on that day that he died in the paddock and he was not himself.

00:23:01.680 And Sid Watkins has said that, right? He knew him so well.

00:23:04.600 Yeah. He, he even tried to talk him into retiring. He said, you know, Ayrton, you've done it all.

00:23:10.160 You have nothing left to prove. And Sid more than anybody else knew the dangers of the sport

00:23:14.780 and thought, why take one more chance?

00:23:18.020 And I think he was also afraid that not only is Senna going to take one more chance,

00:23:21.380 but he's going to take a heroic chance.

00:23:23.840 Right. Right. Exactly. And I think, and I think that's what frightened him as he realized,

00:23:28.360 like this man is heading towards death.

00:23:29.880 You know, it's interesting when you think about Jackie Stewart's last race was a non-race.

00:23:34.840 He didn't race his last race because his teammate, Yacht Wrent was his teammate.

00:23:40.500 Oh, severe.

00:23:41.120 Oh yeah. Sorry. Severe.

00:23:42.300 His teammate died in qualifying for that race. What was it? Was it Watkins?

00:23:47.380 It was at Watkins Glen.

00:23:48.140 Yeah. Watkins Glen. I mean, I love watching interviews of Jackie Stewart talking about that. And he was just

00:23:52.980 like, that was enough. That was it. It was over.

00:23:56.680 Yep. And again, I don't know. I would not give anything to sit down and ask the question of

00:24:02.560 Jackie Stewart. Right. But, you know, here's a man who started driving when, I mean, if I'm

00:24:07.820 remembering correctly, I think there was a 30% survival rate, like a 70% death rate. Right.

00:24:13.000 When he started driving cars and, and he was so brave, like he worked to make safety better,

00:24:19.060 but my God, who wouldn't when seven out of 10 people aren't surviving.

00:24:21.860 So he was incredibly brave. And I don't think that changed. I don't think his bravery changed.

00:24:29.120 I think he had a sense of being paternal to Severe. Severe was younger. Jackie Stewart

00:24:33.820 was nurturing him. And I think his sense of enough.

00:24:35.840 Jackie Stewart loved, I mean, he was, he wanted to give him every piece of knowledge he

00:24:40.560 had is sort of the impression I get.

00:24:43.020 Yeah. And I think, you know, there's, there's a different story there too, right? Which is

00:24:47.500 like, how can we parse out the bravery of Jackie Stewart versus Ayrton Senna? I mean,

00:24:51.060 when we're stratospheric. And one of them was a death, Ratzenberger's death, I think,

00:24:57.600 told Senna a lesson that I believe is born of trauma. I mean, I think that think about the

00:25:02.440 drive in Senna and it was a drive. There had to be something in him of, of fighting some

00:25:08.240 sense of not being good enough that he had to save his country, save the world. And I think

00:25:13.060 that that had fatal consequences as opposed to Jackie Stewart, who I think he seemingly

00:25:17.800 is a more balanced human being, right? Who recognize in the death of Severe, like it's

00:25:22.760 time for me to stop. And I think the different lessons from, from that death are indicative

00:25:28.120 of, I think the different character structures of those two men. And again, I have no basis

00:25:32.580 for saying that other than being a fan of the sport and reading things and trying to thinking

00:25:36.140 about it. And I mean, there was clearly something, there was a demon inside of Senna, right?

00:25:40.560 I mean, I just don't think people flog themselves like that. You know, people don't just run

00:25:45.820 in the heat with their uniform and helmet on, you know, until they like fall over. And then

00:25:50.220 someone like, okay, at that moment, you can't go any farther. Someone puts you in a car and

00:25:53.380 you go back and get rehydrated. I mean, like, you know, there was a way in which there was

00:25:57.460 something messianic in him. And I'm not sure that there can be messianic things.

00:26:00.380 Do you remember the, um, the Brazilian Grand Prix that he won in, was it 93? When his, um,

00:26:07.080 yeah, the, the steering, the, no, the, uh, he got stuck in basically like, that's right.

00:26:11.920 What year was that? The, um, I don't remember if I don't remember after I don't remember what

00:26:17.700 year it was, but it was the gear. Uh, he was stuck in a certain gear or something. It was a gear that

00:26:22.840 I remember thinking, I was just thinking about this the other day. I was like literally driving

00:26:26.240 around the other day. And I thought, what would I do if my car was stuck in fourth? Like if this was

00:26:31.420 the only gear I could be in, I don't even know how I would drive. And yet this guy manages

00:26:35.500 to win the Brazilian Grand Prix when for a third of the race, he's stuck in some high gear.

00:26:41.280 Right. And, and I think whether it was that, that made the car harder to drive, but like,

00:26:45.700 you know, he had muscle cramping, right from head to toe. And I think part of that was the heat

00:26:50.120 and the extra difficulty of, you know, of yanking that car around the track. Right. It made it so

00:26:57.740 difficult to drive that I'm sure he understood like, how do you keep the revs up? How do you actually do

00:27:01.500 this? Right. In a way that like, again, you or I would get passed by bicycles. Right. Right.

00:27:05.620 But he's still able. No, no, I would have just stalled. I mean, I just, I wouldn't have been

00:27:08.040 driving. Right. And, and I think the drive, I mean, in my view of, of human performance in a way

00:27:15.000 that we can witness, right? Human tenacity in a way that we can witness. They had to pull him out of

00:27:20.780 the car. Yeah. When you see footage of that film, you've never seen him in that kind of pain.

00:27:26.600 No. He couldn't hold up the trophy at the end. Do you remember? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he said

00:27:31.660 something about, this is in front of Brazil. Right. And he said something to his mother and

00:27:36.020 father, right? About like not to touch him. That's right. His father was trying to hug him

00:27:39.760 after the race. And he just said, no, don't touch me. Don't touch me. Yeah. And, and, you know,

00:27:43.580 that to me is the, is the kind of bravery that we at times don't get to witness. Right. It's a kind

00:27:48.160 of bravery that's like legendary in wartime. Right. You know, it's a kind of bravery that I think

00:27:53.320 we respect so infinitely. And I don't think we get to see it. You know, I mean, I've, I've talked

00:27:58.980 and, and this is not the time to go into it, but you know, of a, uh, an uncle of mine who's a war

00:28:03.540 hero, right. Who, you know, when they were shooting at him, jumped out and went and got the guy who'd

00:28:08.380 been shot. Right. And was decorated and like did things that to me are like unimaginable. Like,

00:28:13.300 how do you, how do you do that? And I don't think that we, we know what to make of that. Like

00:28:18.080 we've been fortunate not to be in those situations. Right. So we don't know, like, what would I do?

00:28:22.680 Could I do that? Would I do that? And we don't have a metric for that in a way that we can

00:28:26.760 understand because we know we're not, we don't understand like how it's in a trench and you're

00:28:30.580 being shot at and somebody has been shot and they're screaming and like, you know, that's,

00:28:34.620 I think that's unfathomable, but I think things like Senna's achievement in Brazil and Senna's

00:28:40.760 drive, like internal drive in San Marino gives us some insight into like what, you know, the human

00:28:48.120 tenacity under incredible, incredible unimaginable pressures. And, and I think that there are ways in

00:28:54.660 which it resonates with us because we get to witness that in a way that otherwise it's inaccessible

00:29:00.140 to us. And we get to see it not just in its glory, but also in its fear and its terror and, you know,

00:29:07.120 in the reality of it, right. That, you know, for every person who jumps out of a trench and saves

00:29:12.380 somebody and gets a medal, you know, how many people are there who jump out of a trench and are

00:29:16.660 dead. So I think witnessing that provides a metric in some ways of what human beings can do. And I

00:29:24.360 think it's, it's, it's great for us to appreciate and to even venerate that. But I think the danger

00:29:30.480 isn't identifying with it too much because I think it's one thing to do that in wartime and maybe people

00:29:36.400 do that who, who don't have trauma as a motivator. It's different, right. But I think doing the things

00:29:42.040 that, that Senna did and ultimately the things that led to his death, I see that in, in rooting in

00:29:47.560 some demon, something traumatic. And again, I obviously don't know what that is, but something

00:29:52.260 inside of him that couldn't be good enough through what he had achieved, couldn't be good enough by

00:29:58.380 celebrating Roland Ratzenberger, even if he finished second or third, there was a drive in him that,

00:30:04.640 that went against rationale and went against survival instincts. And I think that there's, you know,

00:30:10.420 part of the reason I, you know, I, I'm so interested in him is it's, there's a lot of

00:30:15.940 warnings in there to us too. And again, not to sound like a broken record, but I think so much of that

00:30:20.880 comes down to, to trauma. And my guess is that sure traumatic things happen to people, but you look at

00:30:26.020 the things, you know, Jackie Stewart was caught in a car, you know, stuck and there's gasoline and it

00:30:31.100 could blow. But anytime he like that man went through traumatic things, but I think ultimately,

00:30:34.980 you know, his decisions don't seem to me to be made through the lens of something traumatic.

00:30:39.620 And I think Senna's do. And again, that may be me trying to over-apply my heuristic, right?

00:30:45.400 But, but that's, you know, for what it's worth, that's how I see it.

00:30:48.780 You know, hope, hopefully there's someone still listening to this who's not, who wasn't necessarily

00:30:52.960 interested in racing, but who will become, you know, I, I feel like there's so many things I want

00:30:56.940 to link to. I mean, for me, the two best there's, there's like a hundred videos and documentaries

00:31:02.380 on formula one that I love, but the two that stand out the most to me are the first and foremost,

00:31:06.360 Senna. Yeah, absolutely.

00:31:07.520 And the second is one, the number one, which is actually the very first time I saw that was with

00:31:13.800 you. Yeah. You and I watched it together like five or six years ago. Uh, it was late on a Saturday

00:31:18.660 night and I don't know what made us decide, like, we're going to stay up late and watch this, but

00:31:22.280 oh my God, you know, what's interesting. I don't remember if they show it in either of those

00:31:27.000 documentaries. They certainly don't show it in one and I don't even know if it comes up in Senna, but

00:31:30.480 do they show the Donington first lap?

00:31:32.940 I don't think so. In the, in the rain at Donington?

00:31:34.640 Yeah. I mean, it's generally regarded as one of the greatest laps in the history of formula one.

00:31:38.700 I mean, we've looked at it so much and I can't remember like, what is it in? What isn't it in?

00:31:42.460 Either way, we'll link to it here so that people can see it. But, uh, it is, you know, it's funny

00:31:47.580 because when I first started caring about racing, I had never raced myself. So it's a totally different

00:31:53.060 animal once you've actually been in one of these cars and it completely like my appreciation for Senna

00:31:59.640 for anyone who does this as a profession is two to three logarithmic orders of magnitude higher.

00:32:09.380 I simply can't understand how they do it. And so, especially to look at something like Donington,

00:32:14.400 where you realize like he passed what? He passed three guys in one lap of a rainy track.

00:32:25.080 And it's not three dudes. It's like, you know, Alain Prost. It's like, it's amazing dudes, right?

00:32:32.940 Three of the best drivers on earth and three of the best cars on earth under conditions of which

00:32:36.400 it appears to be impossible to pass someone.

00:32:38.320 And you somehow managed to pass them all from number four position. It's just, again, I can watch

00:32:45.120 that lap a hundred times. And all I want to do is say, you couldn't make this up. If this were in a

00:32:51.760 movie, you would say, that's silly. We don't do that in movies. At least draw this out over 10 laps

00:32:57.640 to have some suspense. You don't get to do it.

00:33:00.200 Keep it realistic.

00:33:00.980 Yeah, yeah. Keep it realistic. This is so stupid. The other thing that fits that description is his

00:33:05.260 qualifying lap at Monaco. Was it in 89 or 88?

00:33:09.640 I want to say 88.

00:33:11.000 Yeah, because it would have been in the MP44, which would have been 88.

00:33:13.420 It would have been 84, I think. The MP44.

00:33:15.680 No, MP44 was 88.

00:33:17.060 Was it? Okay. Okay. So then it would be 88.

00:33:19.220 So what's a normal gap in between the first, second guy and qualifying at a course the size

00:33:24.900 of Monaco? Like a tenth of a second, a hundred, you know, five one hundredths of a second to a

00:33:29.720 tenth of a second, right? Do you remember how much he was ahead of Prost that year in qualifying?

00:33:35.580 I just remember. It's like, it may as well have been minutes.

00:33:38.180 Yeah. It's about a second and a half.

00:33:39.920 Right. Like an impossible amount of time. And to someone who'd look, anyone who's not impressed

00:33:45.400 with that, it's already long stopped listening to us.

00:33:47.940 That's right. That's right. Anybody who's still listening to this, we don't have to explain

00:33:50.480 why it's so significant.

00:33:51.380 So a second and a half may as well be an hour. I mean, it's, it's an impossible gap.

00:33:56.920 And the fact that the gap was against Prost driving the same car, right? And one of my

00:34:03.980 favorite videos of that, because you know what's tragic? I mean, there are real tragedies.

00:34:08.040 This is like little T tragic, not big T tragic. There is no onboard film of that lap.

00:34:12.680 Is that right? So the onboard film we will often see is, the onboard film we see of him

00:34:16.960 is, is in that race, but it's not in that lap there to my knowledge. And I hope, I hope

00:34:22.600 somebody can prove this wrong. And if you can, please tell us, there's a case of Topo

00:34:27.180 Chico with your name on it. I do not believe there is any onboard film from the qualifying

00:34:32.800 lap in 88 Monaco in the MP4, four, where he goes a set one, like something like 1.52 seconds

00:34:38.020 faster. I didn't realize that. I thought some of the video that we'll watch of like

00:34:41.700 Senna's greatest lap in Monaco was that lap. So I think they're wrong. I think they're

00:34:45.260 video from the race or other qualifying, not from that lap. But what there is a video of

00:34:52.620 is Prost's face in the paddock as he sees the time. And it's just a look of, are you

00:35:00.800 freaking kidding me? Right. This guy is not for real. Right. Right. I mean, there's a

00:35:07.180 man who, I think one of the greatest drivers in history, who has to have in his head, like,

00:35:11.720 okay, like Senna is great. But if I've gone this fast, what's the fastest he could go?

00:35:15.960 Right. A tenth of a second more, maybe at his best, you know, 5.100. I mean, how could

00:35:21.220 it, to see that, you know, it's just proof of concept of the preternatural ability of

00:35:27.100 Ertan Senna. And, and I think, you know, having exceptional ability at anything is a wonderful

00:35:32.260 thing, but it also can be a dangerous thing. And having preternatural ability is an extremely

00:35:37.540 wonderful thing and also an extremely dangerous thing.

00:35:40.080 There's a video we'll try to link to. I remember sending it to you when it came out. I described

00:35:44.120 it as the finest McLaren propaganda I have ever seen. And McLaren has the best propaganda.

00:35:50.460 Yeah, they do. I love their propaganda.

00:35:52.100 Yeah, yeah. I'm all in. I'm a sucker for that propaganda.

00:35:53.980 I'm buying the hook, line, and sinker.

00:35:55.680 If I could have afforded a P1, I would have bought one the day that Nuremberg ring came out. I was 0.92

00:35:59.960 like, I got to have one. But they have a video of that lap, which of course doesn't show any

00:36:05.540 footage of the lap. But in it, Senna says that may have been the peak of his career. That moment

00:36:12.520 he would go on. He, at the, in fact, he hadn't even won a world championship yet. He won his first

00:36:18.920 championship in 88. I think, yeah, I think the MP44 was his first championship car. I think he won.

00:36:25.380 I'd have to, yeah, I think he won 88, 90, and 91. But anyway, to think that he believes that he was

00:36:32.560 at his best, even before he'd won his first championship, because of that margin.

00:36:37.440 Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's amazing, right? It's, it's hubris. It's brilliance. Like it's,

00:36:42.740 it's putting together everything that's on the absolute knife edge and getting it right. Amazing.

00:36:48.500 Yeah. I remember they explained this to us, you know, in racing school, which was the difference

00:36:53.500 between you and them is you will very occasionally be able to take a car to its limit very occasionally.

00:37:04.040 And then most of the time you'll go too far and you'll lose control of the car. The best in the

00:37:08.540 world are always at the limit without going over it. It's amazing. And so even my coach,

00:37:14.040 who's a professional driver to this day, when I sit in a car with him and we're trying to go over

00:37:20.560 something. So like, we'll get in the car together and I'll be in the passenger seat and he'll be in

00:37:23.460 the driver's seat and we'll communicate through the radio. Cause of course it's too loud to talk

00:37:26.280 and he'll take me through laps. So we write button willows sort of our favorite place. Cause it's

00:37:30.840 relatively close in Southern California. There are areas there, like in particular, I don't know if

00:37:35.320 you know that track well, but the bus stop, which is a part of that track. I don't, I don't know.

00:37:39.860 This day I still get kind of nervous how fast he's going. Amazing. I'm like, how is he able to

00:37:49.540 control this? And you're really good at this and really experienced and you know the car and it

00:37:52.780 even, it's amazing you to be in the car with him. I wouldn't say I'm really good. I mean, but the

00:37:56.160 point is I'm, I'm not a normal, like I'm not just a lay person who's never been in or driven a race

00:38:00.580 car, but yeah, it just humbles me. It is amazing. And again, I think we celebrate and, and venerate

00:38:08.320 exceptional talent. And I think that's wonderful. Right. But I also, I think we need to be careful

00:38:14.160 about the lessons of it too. You know, that this is like one is as exciting as can be. We're talking

00:38:19.260 about human beings at the limit and it's exceptional and it's inspiring and it's risky, you know, and it

00:38:24.880 really tells us something. It tells us something about human beings that, that we, in some ways we,

00:38:32.100 we want to push ourselves. You know, we want to, we want to admire people who push to the limit.

00:38:37.680 So while we're on the topic of racing, there's another driver who I know a lot less about than

00:38:44.140 you. Uh, but I just remember from some of our, put it this way. I remember when, when you figured

00:38:50.500 out that I was Canadian, which was kind of a funny concept. It's like this guy's from Canada. Like

00:38:56.840 what the hell is that? Um, which of course Americans are secretly so jealous of Canada cause you've got

00:39:04.360 your shit together up there that we like make fun of you to kind of cover that up. So I think that 0.98

00:39:08.840 comes from insecurity too, to be honest. But the thing that you loved most about the fact that I was

00:39:14.220 Canadian was Jill Villeneuve. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you might be the greatest Villeneuve fan ever.

00:39:20.760 What is it about Villeneuve that you loved so much? I think a part of it is like, I was a,

00:39:25.560 I was a kid. Right. So when I first was like learning about him, you know, there was,

00:39:29.760 I was so impressionable and so impressed by the glory of utter mastery of something

00:39:37.800 that was really venerated on a worldwide scale. So the fact that like there was no one with as

00:39:45.080 much natural talent. I mean, one might argue, you know, like Stefan Beloff, Fangio, Clark, I mean,

00:39:50.640 Senna, you have to look like there's only a couple people you can even talk about in the same breath in

00:39:55.080 terms of natural talent. And, you know, in retrospect, I think just the utter audacity

00:40:03.300 of him, you know, I mean, this is a guy started off as like a snowmobile racer, right? In Quebec

00:40:07.980 and was so shockingly good that what a few years later he's driving in Formula One for Ferrari. I

00:40:15.560 mean, like this was during an era when Ferrari was not a dominant car.

00:40:20.040 No, I mean, he won in a car that I think he himself described as a truck, but he was so

00:40:26.520 shockingly talented. And in retrospect, I think it's interesting because again, I try and

00:40:32.840 I think if we're going to, if we're going to respect and to some degree venerate humans who have

00:40:40.220 great and at times preternatural talent and are willing to take risks, then we also have to

00:40:46.320 acknowledge that, you know, sometimes the outcome of that is something that isn't glorious, right?

00:40:52.120 That is just simply tragic. And I think, you know, Senna's death, I think was so tragic because I think

00:40:57.480 that is, that's a person who, who did understand the risks. I think in many ways, Villeneuve and I

00:41:04.040 think Beloff, you know, in the, what, how many years, almost 35 years or so that I've been, you know,

00:41:10.700 really following closely, you know, high level motorsports or two people who I, I mean, I'm not

00:41:15.940 so sure that there was any fear in them and that's extremely dangerous. And I think they were

00:41:21.540 preternaturally.

00:41:22.020 Do you know up until, I'm sorry to interrupt, but do you realize that Beloff's Nuremberg ring record

00:41:26.420 was only broken a week ago?

00:41:28.720 I didn't know that. I didn't know that it was broken a week ago.

00:41:31.160 Yeah.

00:41:31.420 I didn't. And again,

00:41:33.720 That's a record that stood for like 35 years or something.

00:41:36.080 And we're talking apples and oranges. I mean, in a car 35 years ago, right? I mean, again,

00:41:42.260 okay, the record was broken, but in some ways you have to look and say like, that record

00:41:46.060 from an era perspective.

00:41:47.260 His drive on Nuremberg was still the most ridiculous thing ever. 0.78

00:41:52.280 Right. Right. So the old Nuremberg ring, right? You know, the most daunting circuit in history. 0.83

00:41:56.760 What did Jackie Stewart call it? The green hell?

00:41:58.500 The green hell, I think is, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, like, I mean, there were things that

00:42:04.280 Beloff and Villeneuve did that, I mean, you, you know, you truly had to like not have anywhere

00:42:11.020 in the equation your survival, which is, you know, part of the reason neither of them survived.

00:42:15.680 And again, I think it's just fascinating the, the innate skill and just the utterly undaunted

00:42:22.360 bravery.

00:42:22.880 Was Enzo alive when, when Villeneuve died, right? I mean, he, he was, what did he say? He said,

00:42:30.700 he once said something about Villeneuve that was kind of remarkable.

00:42:33.200 Yeah. He, so he, you know, for Enzo Ferrari had been a driver, right? And it was in Tazio

00:42:39.300 Nuvolari, right? That he felt like, you know, Nuvolari was hard to, again, compare. I mean,

00:42:44.460 it was so, so long ago, but when people really talk about the greatest people that have ever,

00:42:49.100 the greatest talents to ever drive a car, Nuvolari is on everybody's list. And in Nuvolari,

00:42:54.000 this like small person, right? Who didn't look like, you know, he would be the greatest driver,

00:42:59.100 but who was unparalleled in his era that Ferrari saw, like, this is the pinnacle of greatness.

00:43:06.260 And it led him to realize, like, he was a very good driver. But like, when you see Nuvolari,

00:43:10.620 you kind of realize, okay, maybe I should stop driving and start building cars. And he really

00:43:15.080 worshiped Nuvolari. And he said something like, who would have imagined, like, I never thought I would

00:43:20.780 see anyone like, you know, Nuvolari died how many decades ago that there's no one else like him.

00:43:25.920 And to see, to find the spirit of Nuvolari again, in this like diminutive elf, like French Canadian, 0.99

00:43:31.760 I mean, I think like, was unimaginable to Enzo Ferrari, who, who therefore felt so passionate

00:43:37.640 about Villeneuve, because he saw in him the ultimate of talent and fearlessness and the ultimate in

00:43:45.900 making a car do seemingly impossible things, which is what Nuvolari was known for and what Villeneuve

00:43:52.040 was known for. Villeneuve died in 82, correct? 1982, yeah. It was older, Belgium. It's a bit of a

00:43:58.860 tragic story as well, not unlike Senna's death, in which you think this could have been preventable.

00:44:05.040 What were the circumstances of his death? It involved a teammate, didn't it? Yeah, his teammate was

00:44:09.740 Pyroni, who had a very, very different personality type. Again, I don't want to be careful not to try

00:44:15.780 so go diagnosing people that I that I've never met or treated. But but this was a person for whom ego

00:44:22.200 in the very traditional sense was on the leading edge, really the opposite of Villeneuve, who people

00:44:27.720 describe as like devoid of guile, like he just didn't get why. And you would never like, double cross

00:44:33.740 someone or do something unsavory, right? I mean, you just go out and like, you went on the track.

00:44:38.060 And, you know, Pyroni had done things at Imola, actually, the previous race, that that were 0.99

00:44:46.100 deceitful. I mean, he did the team orders where whoever was ahead, like that's that at a certain

00:44:50.780 point in the race. And then Pyroni passed Villeneuve when Villeneuve wasn't, you know, didn't think that

00:44:56.260 that could happen. But his teammate would pass. Right. Because because never in a million years would

00:45:00.120 Villeneuve just like, what I'm going to do? Disobeyed. Yeah. And to win in a way that would then be

00:45:05.120 hollow, right? Like you're in front at the time that the team has decided is when somebody wins.

00:45:09.540 Now you slow down and I pass you. It's like, what's the glory in that? And I believe that he

00:45:14.000 had thought that like, there must have been some mistake. And he like repassed Pyroni, right?

00:45:18.000 And then slowed down again, not even thinking then maybe he did this on purpose. And, uh,

00:45:22.780 and I think Pyroni passed him a second time. I, you know, in Villeneuve's drive then was such a drive

00:45:28.740 to win that at the time he was killed. I mean, it was almost like a 50, 50, which direction is his car

00:45:33.540 going to go. Like you slow down so you don't take that risk that you make the wrong choice

00:45:37.420 and there's disaster. And I think the absence of fear, the anger of having been deceived,

00:45:43.560 um, in many ways, the naivete really led to his death. Although by the same token,

00:45:48.640 I don't think there was anyone driving with Villeneuve who like thought that he was going

00:45:53.120 to retire. I don't think anyone thought that it was like, no one thought that of Beloff. No,

00:45:57.580 no one thought that of Nouvellar. And if I understand, remember correctly,

00:46:00.720 he died of tuberculosis in old age. Right. So that doesn't mean that they were fated,

00:46:05.600 you know, to die in a car, but, but I think that the expectation was that there was,

00:46:10.260 you know, really no concept of self-preservation.

00:46:12.880 You know, going back to Senna, one of the things that amazes me is the idea that

00:46:17.100 there aren't that many examples of athletes in other sports where the greatest of the generation

00:46:23.900 before and the greatest of the generation after still without hesitation, acknowledge him as the

00:46:29.460 greatest. And, and so there's Fangio, Juan Manuel Fangio, who again would certainly be on anybody's

00:46:34.560 short list of greatest drivers of all time, you know, regarded Senna as the greatest. And if you

00:46:39.380 ask Lewis Hamilton, who is arguably today's greatest driver, who is the greatest without hesitation,

00:46:44.960 Ayrton Senna. Right. That's, um, that's amazing. You ask the drivers of Senna's era,

00:46:49.220 who was the greatest? Ayrton Senna. Right. I mean, I remember the interviews of Fangio as an old man

00:46:54.040 talking about Senna saying, and he felt like this was the passing of the torch. This is the one who

00:46:58.680 is better than me. I can remember the interviews, he would say over and over, lo mejor, right? He'd

00:47:02.340 say like the best, like he's clearly the best. And you'd see like his Fangio, you know, as an old man,

00:47:07.900 almost a deity at that point. There's a beautiful picture of Fangio standing on the podium with

00:47:12.960 Senna, holding him, embracing him like a child. You know, he has his hands on his cheeks in the most

00:47:18.600 loving way. Yeah. It's such a, and again, it looks like it's his father or his grandfather.

00:47:23.240 Yeah. It's, it's when you think about validation of someone, right? And, and I think that's because,

00:47:28.980 you know, I mean, look, there's so many reasons for it, right? But because if you look at all around,

00:47:34.500 right, I mean, again, we could split hairs about bravery, talent, and we can look at people like

00:47:39.420 Villeneuve and Beloff and Fangio and Clark and, you know, and Prost, right? And Mansell and,

00:47:45.640 and Schumacher, and you can look at all these people and, you know, there's so many different

00:47:50.020 aspects of ability that, that you can, you know, how do you really judge one versus another without

00:47:55.220 splitting hairs? But, but when you take it all together, there is a picture that emerges, which,

00:48:01.860 which denotes Senna as the best, right? When you combine talent, dedication, you know, understanding

00:48:08.540 of the nuances, wanting to understand why the Japanese engineers, the Honda engineers loved him

00:48:13.220 because he wanted to understand every single thing about that car and, and the engine that

00:48:19.260 was propelling it. He was the ultimate because there was nothing that was anything less than 100%

00:48:26.860 intensely relevant. Every nuance of the course, every nuance of the car, every nuance of the engine,

00:48:32.180 every nuance of the competition, their physical prowess, their experience, their psychological

00:48:36.660 weaknesses, right? I mean, this is a person who approached Formula One, like you or I might approach,

00:48:42.600 like, like saving our family, right? I mean, there's like no nuance that isn't 100% imperatively

00:48:50.800 relevant. And, and I think to be that way and to maintain that really marked him, like, you know,

00:48:56.680 it elevated the talent, the bravery, it elevated everything to the, to the really optimal level,

00:49:01.680 which is why I think, you know, he, you know, that there's reason why the generations all say that

00:49:07.780 he's the greatest, right? And I think it's, it's for good reason. And again, I keep coming back to

00:49:13.040 the idea that part of being the greatest for him was being messianic. And if you're going to be

00:49:19.060 messianic, there's a risk that you won't survive it.

00:49:21.920 I remember Prost would say this in interviews. He, you know, cause it's interesting, Prost and Senna had a

00:49:26.940 completely tumultuous, hostile relationship until the day that he died.

00:49:31.880 Yeah. It's very interesting. You, I don't remember again, I, which interview I've seen it in. I,

00:49:36.120 it might be in one of these documentaries, but pros tells the story of how, cause he had retired in

00:49:40.020 93 after winning in the, uh, the Williams, uh, I guess that year would have been the 15, right?

00:49:45.540 The F15. And now he's a commentator. So Imola that day, the day that Senna died, Senna said on the

00:49:53.740 radio, something to the effect of, I want to welcome my great and wonderful friend, Elaine Prost. It's so

00:49:59.600 wonderful to have you on the radio or something to that effect. And, and Prost commented how he was

00:50:04.460 like so moved by that. You know, they had had such a bitter rivalry and here was Senna paying him this

00:50:10.980 wonderful, gracious, kind compliment. And of course, several weeks later, you know, or several,

00:50:17.120 yeah, probably a week later, Prost is one of his pallbearers. Yeah. But Prost had said many times

00:50:22.100 during interviews, he's like, the problem with Senna is he thinks he can't die. He has this

00:50:29.460 belief, this belief that he has some God given right to win every race, no matter what.

00:50:36.380 That's messianic. Right. And you know, when you think about the personality types, right? I mean,

00:50:43.580 Prost was, as far as I can ascertain, a practical man. I mean, there's a reason why his nickname was

00:50:48.400 the professor, right? Like his goal was, I'm going to win as much as I can.

00:50:52.360 It's okay. It's probabilistic. And yeah, we played. Yeah.

00:50:54.900 I want victory. I want, you know, I want the fame and fortune that comes along with it. And

00:50:59.600 fucking obviously I want to survive it, right? Because like, there's a whole bunch of things 0.97

00:51:02.640 to do afterwards. And you know, that mentality running up against a messianic meaning to like

00:51:10.680 everything, right? To every qualifying, every practice session, you know, every, let alone every

00:51:16.560 race, they were so different that I think it was almost impossible that they weren't going to 1.00

00:51:23.280 clash in ways that became deeply personal. But when you take them out of that crucible,

00:51:28.680 right? That these were people that ultimately I think had deep respect for the differences in them.

00:51:34.900 I mean, I think in ways, maybe one might say Prost could have used a little bit of Senna and Senna

00:51:39.080 could have used a little bit of Prost. Yeah, but they were oil and water. They wouldn't make something,

00:51:42.640 you know, Frank Williams, from the day he first saw Senna always wanted him on his team. And

00:51:48.720 the reason it took until 1994 was because Prost was there. And Prost had a clause in his contract

00:51:56.900 that said, I will never be on the same team as Senna. Yeah, yeah. So he had to wait for Prost to

00:52:02.900 retire to leave McLaren. Right. Which Frank Williams, I mean, my understanding and from what I've read

00:52:08.360 is, you know, that that Frank Williams loved pitting people against one another. Right. I mean, how did

00:52:14.940 look, I think the most exciting person I ever watched drive, I do think is Nigel Mansell. And,

00:52:22.020 you know, you look at Mansell was considered kind of second rate, right? He was, you know, at a time

00:52:27.080 there were ones and twos, you know, he was the two to Andretti. And I think he was a two to

00:52:31.540 Piquet. To Piquet. He was the two to Piquet as well, right? But when Frank Williams had him as

00:52:37.340 the two to Piquet, that was because, well, Piquet was the acknowledged number one. Right. But it

00:52:42.320 wasn't forbidden. But Mansell was saying, oh God, no. Right. And, and, and Williams wasn't the kind

00:52:47.220 to say, look, you know, you are number two. You have to sit in the number two. Right. He was the

00:52:50.220 kind of, look, you're starting number two, but you want to be number one, you know. Go out and prove it.

00:52:54.540 And part of, you know, Piquet's kind of denigration, I think, you know, his haughty condescension to

00:53:00.040 Mansell is part of what like infuriated him, you know, and, and I think made him, you know,

00:53:05.780 really among the greatest of the greats. I mean, you watch, I believe it's Mexico City. You watch

00:53:10.740 Mansell pass Berger on the outside. I mean, like Mansell did impossible things with impossible

00:53:16.540 aggression. And I think Senna said at one point that they asked him, like, who do you worry when

00:53:20.800 you see someone in your rear mirror? And he said, the only person you worried about was Mansell because

00:53:24.620 he's content to go over you if he can't go around you. I mean, that's a powerful statement coming

00:53:29.840 from Senna. And part of what did that was, I think, the infuriation of being the number two to a

00:53:35.540 condescending number one and wanting to trounce him. That's why that era, I mean, my God, like,

00:53:41.320 it's just unbelievable to me to go back. And I get, honestly, it sounds awful to say this, but,

00:53:46.400 but I much prefer enjoying, enjoy watching races from that area than even watching races today,

00:53:51.580 which isn't to say I don't enjoy races today. And I think this year with, you know, Mercedes and

00:53:55.920 Ferrari both being so close, it's actually quite exciting again. It for, I think Formula

00:54:00.460 One has had a few years of really uninteresting racing because so much of, as you said, so much

00:54:06.180 mechanical, so much of it is in the car now and less of it's in the driver. But, you know, back then you

00:54:12.080 really got to see the difference. Yeah. I think that, that was an era when the force of personality,

00:54:19.660 you think about the difference in personalities of Senna, Prost and Mansell, right? But were there,

00:54:28.060 I mean, are there ever stronger personalities on the face of the planet? And the force of personality

00:54:33.320 could lead to seemingly impossible things. And from my perspective, that was incredibly exciting

00:54:40.200 to watch. I mean, what, what is the limit of human potential in this arena where human potential

00:54:45.400 in terms of physical stamina, you know, cognitive ability, you know, reflexes, you know, the kind

00:54:53.080 of things that, that we most respect in people in terms of being able to do incredible things.

00:54:59.400 It's incredible things in the body and the mind and then putting those together. And then you put

00:55:03.700 that together, you put that together with the force of personality. And I think, again, I think it gives

00:55:09.780 us an insight into things that we usually don't see, you know, like the depths of human struggles in

00:55:14.840 wartime. And I do really believe it's also the depth of human struggle in quiet situations that

00:55:20.480 no one cares about, right? I mean, I really do believe that, that I think that we get an insight,

00:55:25.360 not just into, you know, the people who, you know, win purple hearts, right? But I think also the people

00:55:32.060 who persevere with nobody caring, right? And no one watching them. And I think in many ways,

00:55:39.720 you know, that's one of the greatest models of bravery. And it might seem like odd or weird,

00:55:43.720 or even forced to like, to compare that to things that these people did on a track under,

00:55:49.360 you know, the greatest crucible of, of bringing talent and ability and bravery to the fore. But,

00:55:56.580 but I really, I do see those parallels that I think in many ways, there's a lot of parallels

00:56:01.440 between these people that we're talking about, and people that no one knows their names, and

00:56:05.400 they're struggling quietly. They're struggling quietly for, you know, the next paycheck that puts

00:56:10.560 food on the table. And they're struggling amidst whatever physical or emotional pain they have.

00:56:15.960 And, and I really do mean that. I mean, again, I'm not trying to be forced about it. I don't make

00:56:21.140 come off that way. But, but I think even back when I was younger, seeing this, I realized that there's,

00:56:26.200 you know, there's that this is like human struggle under the microscope, but it's emblematic of all sorts

00:56:33.180 of human struggle that, you know, that, that often is inaccessible to us because it's, it's in a place

00:56:39.180 we can't go, which could be the quiet struggles of the uncelebrated as much as it could be the

00:56:45.080 battlefield.

00:56:45.720 So one last driving question. I don't know if the video exists anymore on YouTube. I actually ended

00:56:50.560 up just buying a copy of it because I was so enamored by it, but rendezvous.

00:56:54.620 Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:55.500 So hopefully we'll be able to find a copy of it and link to it. But if we can't, and there's a good

00:57:01.020 chance we won't be able to, I do recommend you go on Amazon and you splurge and just buy the DVD of,

00:57:07.040 of Claude Lelouch, uh, his, his very famous short film called rendezvous, which you introduced me to

00:57:13.200 when we were in medical school. Yeah. I hadn't actually seen that.

00:57:15.840 Well, that was like a, I mean, it was like the, the automotive equivalent of a snuff film.

00:57:21.460 You know, I don't even know where I first saw that, but I think it was somebody who had

00:57:25.360 some like VHS copy of it or, you know, it was, I mean, it was when we, when we, you know,

00:57:31.480 it was when we first were watching it together, you know, it was this like legendary inaccessible

00:57:36.040 thing. Yeah. That you'd heard about, but never seen. And I still remember we were at Pyle's house

00:57:41.300 when you whipped out either the VHS or whatever, and we somehow watched it. And I mean, we probably

00:57:46.660 watched it 50 times cause you couldn't believe you were seeing this thing. Yeah. So what's your

00:57:53.180 best guess? Who is the driver? You know, I have no idea in part because I had these guesses,

00:57:58.400 but now I think the knowledge of who it was or wasn't has kind of moved ahead. So, you

00:58:04.140 know, my thought that it might've been, uh, Jackie X, for example, like I, again, I don't

00:58:09.240 know if like that's been entirely debunked and it clearly isn't. Um, Despailliers, I, I believe

00:58:15.820 Despailliers was still alive at the time. And, and, you know, the thought of like, okay,

00:58:19.780 it had to be someone who was an amazing driver, pretty, pretty fearless and had to know Paris

00:58:25.120 like the back of their hand. Yeah. And also in an era that, that I think rendezvous is

00:58:30.000 like one of the most amazing things filmed, but, but I also, you know, there's a part

00:58:34.500 of me that I don't want to sound like a school mom that once said, look, they clearly put

00:58:37.780 other people's lives at risk. Right. So like in the craziness of the seventies and in that

00:58:43.220 era of like really being untamed, you know, you would need someone who would just be able

00:58:49.040 to like literally throw all caution to the wind about self and other. Right. I mean,

00:58:53.480 Lelouch was arrested when that film showed. I think cause the thought was that he was

00:58:59.180 driving. Yes. Right. Um, and it was shown. It's made to appear that he's driving at the

00:59:04.260 very end. Cause he gets out of the car, he gets out of the car, but, but having now watched

00:59:07.980 it 87 times on slow mo, it's clear that he, he's, he's superimposed, but he basically sneaks

00:59:15.180 in and looks like he's getting out, but he wasn't the driver. There's no way. Right. I

00:59:18.980 mean, unless he was a closet formula one driver, it's like, how, how could you be that? Like,

00:59:23.520 how could you be that adept? Right. If, if you weren't like one of a handful of people,

00:59:28.200 I mean, that, that would be my take on it again. I, maybe that's wrong, but I think that's

00:59:32.280 why people started looking to, okay, who are the formula one drivers who are like completely

00:59:36.680 fearless, would throw caution to the wind and no Paris. And, you know, and then there

00:59:40.640 were just kind of a handful of names. I mean, I'd love someday to know the definitive

00:59:44.740 answer, but certainly watching it again, I think that's emblematic of an era, right?

00:59:50.660 Of an era when, I mean, I believe that it was the first time when like cameras could

00:59:55.600 be mounted in cars, right? And you could have like stabilized. Yeah. You had gyroscopic

01:00:00.400 technology that basically allowed you to stabilize that. And of course, to this day, there's still

01:00:04.300 huge debate as to whether it was a Mercedes dubbed over a Ferrari, like whether the Ferrari

01:00:08.900 was dubbed over the Mercedes or if it was the actual Ferrari being driven. Right. And again,

01:00:12.900 I don't know enough. I mean, I like, I try and think about like the, the, the sound versus

01:00:17.620 the visual synchrony. Right. And it seems to me like, I'm not so sure how that could have

01:00:21.220 been dubbed. Right. But again, what do I know? Yeah. There's, there's no dispute that

01:00:25.220 the sound is that of the Ferrari. So you're right. The question is, I mean, again, this is

01:00:30.080 now we're getting so deep in baseball. It's like, but, but of course you and I are the

01:00:33.820 only two listening at this point. It's probably safe to say there is not a, another person

01:00:38.820 on earth that is listening. Now you and I are just talking and we happen to be

01:00:41.840 recording. Exactly. Exactly. If anyone wants to know how like boring, pedantic and tedious

01:00:47.940 our lives actually are, this is the perfect indicator, right? We're down to nuances of

01:00:52.820 like whether the Ferrari was dubbed over the Mercedes or vice versa.

01:00:57.740 Well, with that, um, I don't, I think it's, it's really great that, that a podcast whose

01:01:04.560 title is the drive finally gets to have an episode. I'll be at a relatively short one

01:01:09.620 that focuses on driving and there's no person I enjoy talking about driving with more than

01:01:15.440 you. So thank you for that. Thank you. And I hope that, uh, you know, we're going to have

01:01:20.980 lots of things that for, for anyone who, who managed to get through this part about driving

01:01:25.240 and who finds themselves interested or wants to know more about it, we're going to link

01:01:28.560 to some unbelievable videos about all of these great personalities that we've discussed.

01:01:33.060 And if nothing else, hopefully it gives you some appreciation of the amazing technical

01:01:38.320 skill that goes into what these guys have done. Yeah.

01:01:42.920 You can find all of this information and more at peteratiamd.com forward slash podcast.

01:01:48.180 There you'll find the show notes, readings, and links related to this episode. You can also

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The Peter Attia Drive - September 20, 2018

#16 - Formula 1 (with Paul Conti)： the best drivers, Ayrton Senna, and the cautionary tales of driven individuals

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