this is pierre gasly
winner of the 2020 italian grand prix
he's a formula one driver
and he's about to do something super
human he's driving at 350 370.
everything happens in such a short time
if you miss your breaking point by a
tenth of a second you'll just crash in
the in the world
in this video we're gonna talk with
pierre figure out how he thinks at such
high speeds
and put those skills to the test against
a normal person like
you or me so start your engines this is
brain power
pierre is beginning his fifth formula
one season after claiming the september
2020
italian grand prix with alphatory in
what could be seen
as the biggest underdog victory of the
season
the driving is a lot more complex than
just driving
a road car like from your home to work
and thinking okay i brake so late at
this red light i'm an f1 driver you know
i've taken this roundabout so well i
drive like a formula one guy like
obviously it's very very different
during a race cars can reach top speeds
of up to 370 kilometers an hour
that's like driving the length of 56
american football fields in one minute
but drivers aren't just moving in a
straight line high speed turns can leave
drivers experiencing
six g's that means their body feels six
times heavier when taking corners
and if you look at f1 circuits you can
see that there are a lot of corners
so before we put pier to the test i
missed it
i needed to get inside his mind a bit
more so i asked pierre to describe just
exactly how he prepares for a race
yeah you just need to process a lot of
information in a very short time so
i just tried to practice on my own on my
focus for
more challenging situations i just
learned how to
get that focus for a bit longer every
year which now allow me to
keep that intensity of focus for for
that period of time
so why is practice so powerful well it's
because of a key mental ability that
formula one athletes use
called cognitive mapping a cognitive map
is a mental representation of a spatial
environment
like an f1 track f1 drivers build up
their cognitive map in two ways
first they study the circuit from
overhead identifying the general path
they'll need to take
and thanks to years of experience they
can anticipate where they may need to
let up or go all out
then they practice to get a feel for the
circuit like the way
certain tires grip the pavement and what
landmarks can cue key actions
this allows drivers to calibrate what's
known as their multi-sensory
perceptual feedback using their
perceptual senses like sight and touch
to send information to the brain and
build a holistic understanding
of the track with enough practice
drivers could theoretically
tackle roots with their eyes closed and
this combo of overhead study and
physical practice
engrains the root into the driver's
memory enabling them to self-localize
in other words at any point in the race
they're able to identify where they are
in the overall circuit
kind of like you are here sticker and
this means that they can prepare for
their next move while
also maintaining close attention to what
they're actually seeing beyond the halo
so creating an accurate cognitive map
means one less thing to focus on in an
exciting race
so it would appear that formula one
drivers should be better than the
average person at in taking a lot of
information and remembering it
accurately but what does that really
mean for a normal person like you or me
like just how superior is their
cognitive mapping abilities and i wanted
to figure this out
so i got a friend to design a game to
test pierre's cognitive mapping
abilities
and his memory and the rules are simple
you get shown a brief sequence of images
and you just have to recite it back to
the best of your abilities and the
sequences just keep getting faster
i tried to do it i goofed it really
badly
but the results pierre got were pretty
interesting and if you want to try this
brain teaser we left a link to it in the
description anyways
here's how pierre did alright are you
ready as long as
as long as i'm the winner in the end we
can do that no i like challenge
let's do it
football f1 esport or key f1
i ate this
[Laughter]
[Music]
erase okie football esport f1
can you can we stop here because i
really don't like this thing
[Music]
is port or key esport f1 or key
i don't know i did that i can't even
remember now what i've said
it's like it just came out pretty
impressive huh but something to remember
that nicole wanted me to remind you all
is that cognitive abilities are really
complex and intertwined
and a test run off of a virtual call
can't really
capture all of these skills perfectly
but what about those skills in their
proper context
a race so i asked pierre to describe
just
exactly what it's like to drive in a
formula one race as i get to the grid at
that moment i can feel like the
adrenaline i can feel the
like the focus that is really increasing
but as soon as there is the first light
it's unbelievable there is like a switch
from that moment from that light onward
i'm just switching to a different zone
where
literally no external thoughts coming
through my mind i'm
just so focused and from that moment the
concentration is so high
i just i don't even know what i'm
thinking about i just know that i have a
different
sort of mindset and focus uh state let's
say driving
is related to each single corner each
single
breaking zone like trajectories the way
you use the track layout the curves etc
so the driving part is one thing
but think about the strategy so we have
different plans how the race could go we
have the ideal
strategy but then depending how your
start is good or bad you have
a lot of other strategies so you just
need to think about your race starts
you have like a thousand switches on the
steering wheel
but it's like so complex so that's what
it's like inside the mind of a formula
one driver
and how they might use cognitive mapping
and multi-sensory perceptual feedback to
navigate through the heat of a race and
that skill actually extends beyond f1
driving
cognitive mapping can be used for other
sports like gymnastics
chess golfing but it can also come in
handy when grocery shopping
driving to work or just trying to find a
midnight snack in your house and all the
lights are out
cognitive mapping well anyways we hope
you learned something and if there's
another sport that you want to see
leave a comment down below and it could
become a future episode you know what
you should do you should go try out the
test because then i'll feel less bad
about myself
for failing it so epically so if other
people fail it
i'll feel that's bad