Racing

`4:46:39`

So I thought, ah man, I'm gonna have to miss it this year. I had like a, not a cast, it was just seriously sprained. And then somehow miraculously like a week before the event, I was like, yeah, actually it's okay now. So got to do it. And that would've been grave regret if I would've seen my team go on to win the race and I would have to sit on the sidelines. But I really have been quite fortunate in the sense that most of my crashes have just been expensive or sporting inconvenient. They've never been something where I got seriously hurt. But I've seen plenty of people who have in fact, my co-driver this year and for several years, Pietro Fittipaldi drove a race car at Spa. Spa is one of the great race tracks of all time. And it has this iconic corner called Eau Rouge, which is probably the most famous corner in all of motorsports. It has a great compression before you climb uphill. It's extremely fast, very difficult corner. And just as he does the compression, his car basically sets out

`4:47:41`

and he loses his power steering and he drives straight into the wall and breaks both his legs and basically faced the prospect that maybe his career was over. I've had other teammates and people I know have serious injuries that's really hurt them. And yet what's funny, as you say, you'd think that would sink in. The year before we won in 2014, that same car had a Danish driver in it at Le Mans at the race I was driving who died. He lost control of the car when there was a bit of rain on the track and the track went unfortunately designed in such a poor way that there was a very big tree right behind the railing. And he hit that tree at full speed, pulled 90 Gs and was dead on the spot, which was just such an extremely awful experience to go through.

`4:48:41`

I finished second that year, which should have been caused for a bunch of celebration. But it was just tainted by the fact that not only did a driver die, a fellow Dane died. A guy I knew died. That was pretty tough. — So that throw that into the pile of the things that have to be considered is the weather conditions that you mentioned of the track. The weather is dry or wet. — It's a huge part of it. — Even just last year at Le Mans. It was raining and I was out, and I hadn't made a serious mistake at the 24 hours of Le Mans since I did the first race in 2012 where I put it in the sand trap with like four hours to go and we lost a couple of lap getting pulled out, but it didn't actually change anything for our result because that was just how the field was spread out. I'd made minor mistakes over the years

`4:49:42`

but nothing that really set us out. And at the race last year when it was raining, I first clobbered a Ford Mustang when I made an overambitious pass on a damp part of the track and couldn't stop in time and then felt absolutely awful as I sat in the gravel pit for two laps and knew that our race was over. A race where we were highly competitive. You're not blessed with a competitive car, a competitive team and competitive setup every year. I know how rare that is. So to know that we had had a chance that year and I sort of squandered it felt really bad, but that got compounded. I got back on track, barely made it another stint and then put it in the gravel trap again when it started raining on the entrance into Porsche. So this is part of why racing is so addicting too because the highs are very, very high. When you win a race like the 24 hours of Le Mans. It feels just incredible. There's so much emotion. But if you fuck it up, the lows are very, very low.

`4:50:44`

— What are the things you're paying attention to when you're driving? What are the parameters? What are you loading in? Are you feeling the grip? Are you basically increasing the speed and seeing what like a constant feedback system effect that has on the grip and you're trying to manage that and try to find that optimal slip angle? Are you looking around using your eyes? Are you smelling things? Are you listening just feeling the wind or are you looking at the field too? Like how'd you not hit that guy at all? You get close with an inches, right? So you have to pay attention to that too. It's really interesting about that specific battle where we're literally a few inches apart. I can't fully explain it, but humans can develop an incredible sense of space. Where I can't see the edge of the back of my car, but I can know exactly where it is. I can have a mental model in my head