Nerves are an unavoidable part of motorsport, but without them we would not reach our full potential. Will Gray explores why they occur and how to benefit from them.

Whether you are preparing to take on a Rally stage at 100mph or reacting to a developing incident from your marshals post, you will feel the effects of a heightened nervous state. It is only natural when you are about to do something beyond the everyday, that your body needs to react.

These nerves – which manifest themselves as butterflies in the stomach, shallow breathing or an increased heart rate – are all to do with our evolutionary origins. The ‘fight or flight’ mentality is more than just a mental state, it can be an entire physiological take-over of the body designed to steer us away from danger – and is not something to be afraid of.

“People think it’s a bad thing for athletes to feel nervous, but we need to challenge that perception,” explains Sidd Sampla, a motorsport Performance Psychologist at iZone Driver Performance. “When we feel nervous, it’s just your body’s way of preparing for something that you really care about.”

There is a lot happening when we get nervous, but it is an automatic mechanism originally developed to keep us safe from predators by triggering a threat hormone in our brain which floods us with adrenaline – preparing the body for action and producing glucose for energy. This chemical response helps to keep us performing at the highest level and being able to recognise, accept, and manage, these situations – whether during pre-event preparations or when faced with a challenge in the middle of a race – can be just as vital as fine tuning the set-up of a car.

“Motorsport is a high-stakes environment,” continues Sampla. “It can be a dangerous sport, but the ‘dangers’ we talk about when it comes to nerves are often not the physical ones, they’re the self-judgments. How am I going to perform against my peers? Am I going to embarrass myself? How are they judging me? Every driver, regardless of how well they’re performing and how experienced they are, will experience lots of internal judgment about expectations and pressures. This causes their heart rate to increase, which pumps more blood into the muscles and the brain, improving physical and mental performance, increasing reaction time and making the muscles alert. The physiological response is also to heighten the senses – giving sharper vision, acuter hearing and quicker reaction times – but there is a fine line, because too much nervous energy can cause an overload and often lead to more anxiety, freezing under pressure, feeling the weight of the pressure and we don’t get going. Getting the balance is crucial.”

This effect was studied more than a century ago by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson, who carried out experiments in which they induced physiological stress in mice and looked at how effectively they responded. The results led to the creation of the Yerkes-Dodson curve, which formed the understanding we have today. Dr Brian Cameron, the Director of Elite Sports Performance, explains: “As they induced stress, via small electric shocks, they got better at the task of finding food. However, as the stress
increased, it reached a point beyond which their performance decayed very quickly.

“Translated to humans, this means in the early stages of arousal, releasing adrenaline for example, brings about physiological responses that are initially helpful to prepare our muscles for ‘fight or flight’. If the perceived or real threat continues to increase, however, the stressors about performing grow and we can go over the peak point in the Yerkes-Dodson curve, at which point the stress will start to become debilitating. This point comes earlier in activities where we are doing complex things, like driving race cars, than in say sprint
running, where the actions demand less cognitive function. That is because in ‘fight or flight’ mode, we need to be using muscles and not brains, so adrenaline diverts blood flow to
increase muscle strength.

“This can result in headaches, being restless, feeling irritable, and even having anxiety attacks, feelings of hopelessness and not being able to concentrate. I’ve seen a couple of drivers get close to inducing migraine-like headaches through nerves, and when you start getting anxiety attacks it can even go as far as having tunnel vision. As the body releases more chemicals to divert resources from your brain, it shuts down systems to focus on what can get you away from the stressor. You need to hit the balance in that curve, and spot when arousal moves from just a healthy ‘ready to rumble’ reaction to a level of anxiety that starts to impact the ability to concentrate and hold attention.”

Graham Blackwell, British Sprint Championship driver

“I would not say I’m ever particularly nervous about competing, but on the morning of a race day I do get butterflies in my stomach. On the event, I work through checklists so I don’t get distracted by my thoughts and overlook anything that could affect safety or performance. I keep a logbook and write notes on my performance and observations, which helps keep me focused. I do have some rituals too – I always step in to the car from the left and my lucky mascot always gets a tap on the head and a quick ‘good luck!’ Once I am belted in, I run through check lists in my head and that keeps me occupied so I don’t dwell on making mistakes. “Once I am in the car, sitting in the queue, I shut my eyes and visualise myself driving around the circuit. I always tell myself I can do it, I can brake later, carry more speed around the bends, and remind myself I still have to take the car home in one piece at the end
of the meeting.”

On the start line
“I put on my serious face, clear my mind of any distractions and I have this determination that comes over me. The relief of getting away from the line is immense, and once the car is running and the wind is blowing through your overalls, the pressure is gone and there’s nothing like it. I’ve never had that level of help before. The sprint laps are over so quickly, so as long as you are in the right frame of mind when the lights change, you’re going to put in a reasonably quick time.”

Managing Nervousness

The early effects of going beyond those positive stress levels can appear in many ways, most of which are easy to spot. It could be feeling discomfort in your stomach; your muscles starting to tighten up; becoming hyperactive; or having different types of feelings such as becoming aggressive or becoming irritable. And if this starts to build, you will have problems. One of the most vital aspects of managing nerves is first embracing the benefit they can bring, and then trying to identify your personal tipping point – where the stress effects become detrimental. This is not easy however, because everybody and every situation is different, so there is no set formula.

“Every feeling has some function that is serving us,” explains Sampla. “The first part is that acceptance stage, just allowing it to be there, not to fight it but instead to sit with butterflies in your stomach. Disengage from the battle, because that is wasted energy that could be better spent on being prepared. Feeling nervous does not mean you are going to have a bad performance. The second part of dealing with nerves is the reframing stage. We’re not trying to shove the butterflies elsewhere; we’re trying to learn ‘when I’m feeling butterflies, when my hands become clammy, I’m okay with that, and these changes are just preparing me to perform.’ When athletes learn to sit with this and normalise it, it helps them to perform well.”

Research on the effect of adrenaline across sport-specific settings, especially around high-risk sports has shown that genetics, biological characteristics, gender, and age, all play a part in what is happening in the body when different stress hormones are released. Dr Cameron adds: “The scientific community has no single model or correlation between anxiety and performance to which everyone agrees. That’s not surprising, because anxiety is down to an individual’s state, their belief system, the traits they have, and every event has a different level of importance attributed to it.

“There are other factors as well – who are they competing against; who’s there watching them; is it on television? Those things change the whole dynamics, so from a coach’s perspective, and a pragmatic perspective, it’s all about understanding what’s causing the nerves and doing things to avoid that specific factor before they become a problem. For example, with one F3 driver I worked with, it wasn’t the actual race that was causing their nerves, it was the fact the race was televised. That increased their psychological stress to the point where it started becoming debilitating. They had headaches, felt sickness beyond the butterflies in the stomach and felt overwhelmed.

“They didn’t want to race, but simply understanding the issue enabled the use of verbal persuasion to help the driver come to terms with it. Thinking ‘I’ve done this before, I can do it again’ or ‘everyone else can do it, so can I’ or just relabelling the TV camera as ‘only one more eye’ – these are all techniques that can bring a driver back from the ledge. The most debilitating nerves are often created by unexpected events that knock you off course, and Cameron continues: “If you’re expecting a dry race and it suddenly becomes a wet race, or if you set a performance goal, but something changes out of your control – such as when some other drivers turn up and perform better than you on the day, that can make you panic.”

So much time in motorsport is spent on analysing performance data from the car, but sports psychologists believe drivers are often missing a trick by not analysing their own mental state. Monitoring personal performance over time, both physically and analytically, can identify trigger points to the stresses you feel. This is only valuable if it can then be used to manage the moments when the pressure boils over, and Sampla adds: “The idea is to look at the behaviour characteristics that are happening for a driver and how they react when they are feeling too much nervous energy or too much draining energy.

“There are several self-assessment tools that drivers can use to measure psychological and physiological stress, while a stress test can be carried out to measure biomarkers such as cortisol to check if the body is under or over stressed. This can be beneficial to build that self-awareness, but how is it going to help? You need to identify how it shows up when
they are in the car – over driving, under driving – and then work out what to do about it. Otherwise, assessment for the sake of it, is just data.

Cam Fair, Rally Co-Driver

“I normally get nervous to a certain extent, particularly on a new rally with lots to take in. Some are more daunting than others because of the road characteristics or the pressure of getting a result. I normally control nerves quite well and use them to drive my motivation before and during the event to perform at my highest level. I start my routine three weeks before an event to ensure I am going into it fully organised. I normally try and socialise with the team and feed off their energy before the event, and I also do a small warm-up to get the body and mind focused on what’s ahead.

“On long road sections between stages, we have music on and talk about things other than Rallying. Then, in the minutes before we get onto the stage, I am doing tyre pressures, checking notes or reading team information, so there isn’t much time to rest.”

On the start line
“I normally feel quite tight and don’t say too much. In my head I’m going through mental notes of my performance and what I’m going to do, almost visualising the stage. Sometimes I use breathing techniques when I’m really tight, and that helps. No, I haven’t used a mind coach, but doing more events, and working in a long-term relationship with a driver really helps with nerves, as you can help each other perform.

Tools and Techniques

Identifying the triggers and effects of exceeding your comfortable levels of stress is just the start. The hardest part is then working out the best tools to use to reduce and eliminate the effects, bringing your mental state back from one that is detrimental to your performance to one that can enhance it. One method, which Cameron uses regularly, is known as attentional control – a technique in which concerns are identified, evaluated and then solved. “If you ever watch an expert doing something, they look effortless, nothing is
rushed,” he says. “They’re performing with spare cognitive capacity because they’re well-rehearsed, well-practiced.

“Some people call it ‘in the zone’ but I just think of it as having your attention focused on the right thing. When something goes wrong – it could be mechanical, a mistake you make, the impact of what another driver has done – the trigger is to think, ‘okay, this has happened’ and learn how to put distracted thoughts to one side. When you use your cognitive capacity to think about things that aren’t relative to my performance – like ‘oh my goodness, why did I make that mistake’; ‘I should have braked later’; ‘why did that driver turn in front of me’; or ‘why am I hearing this rattle from the car?’ – then you’re not going to perform as well because your attention is not there.

“The trick is being able to identify a distractive thought, bring that external focus to an internal focus and think about how you deal with that, then take that solution and externalise it into a set of actions. That’s just a cognitive process to run through and, with practice, it becomes almost intuitive.” The technique of focusing on ‘the now’ is, at a deeper level, central to the increasingly popular practice of mindfulness.

This scientific tool, which has been around for hundreds of years, is now becoming a more recognised term in the mainstream, even finding its way into primary schools as a technique to manage mental health. It is all about living in the moment and Sampla, who uses it a lot, explains: “Your best performance comes from being present. Not in the past, not in the future. It’s about trying to stay in this present moment regardless of what might happen or what has happened. So, this work is all about reorientating the mind to the present moment.

“Mindful awareness work happens in the lead up to a race when, if a driver is under pressure for some reason, they could start noticing it in the mind and get in a spiral of expectation,
with lots of unhelpful thoughts. So, mindful practice can be used to separate the mind from the thoughts and diffuse what’s happening in our mind. The more we practice mindfulness in this context, the more we can separate the thoughts, judgments and expectations and create space within which we can choose what we do and where we want to go. I can choose where my energy is going to go, because I’m no longer feeling so stressed, no longer weighed down by this feeling.”

There are many different techniques to achieve this, going far beyond the basics of sitting and listening to relaxing music. Everything is focused on practicing the art of eliminating external thoughts and building awareness of what is around you, then applying that when you face moments of stress. Sampla continues: “When you tune a car, you become aware of what’s happening in the car and what it needs to get it working. The idea is the more aware we are of our body and our mind, the more we’re able to show up in our best way, and the easier it is to understand things, make changes and adapt. We do mindful sitting; we focus on breath awareness – because when you are breathing, the breath only exists in the present moment; and we also do body scans, which link to physiological states of body awareness – so feeling your arms and body and feeling the stress or tension within you.

“Drivers need immense concentration when they are competing and this all helps to develop present moment awareness, which helps drivers to stay focused. The moment you shift that concentration, it can be really costly, so the more drivers practice this awareness of being present, staying safe, the more they are able to fully engage. Once you get to the race, it becomes no longer caring about the result, the performance, but about ‘how do I just focus on this thing I’m doing right now, this task right in front of me?’ It might be the next apex, the way you enter or exit a corner, and the idea is just to stay focused on that and let the performance come.”

Developing these techniques requires a lot of practice but that does not necessarily need to be at the track. Analysing how you deal with stressful situations in everyday life, or even getting on a console racing game and dealing with situations that occur in the virtual world, can help build better mind control. At iZone, the focus is on simulator training, and Sampla says the more realistic the experience can be, the better you can relate what you learn to the racetrack. “It links to visualisation,” he explains. “There’s a clear parallel between enacting the task and our mind thinking it’s the same thing, or something similar, and we know there’s power in that. If you invoke very similar real-life scenarios, you can practice
breathing, visualisation, self-talk, acceptance in simulation, all at the same time, so that when you are in competition, you will remember ‘this happened in sim training’ and then your body unconsciously just brings it to it, because it’s already trained through it.”

Attention control is similarly easy to practice on a day-to-day basis and Cameron adds: “If something happens, you just need to think ‘why did I do that, what were the external factors involved and how do I solve that?’ By internalising the factors and working out what you need to do with it repeatedly, you become more and more familiar with the process.”

Garry Pearson, Rally driver

“Nerves are there for every driver and it is how you use them to your advantage that can be the difference. I like to be very organised, so go over everything in my own mind. I will do that up to 100 times, visualising what’s coming or how it will feel before I am even there. I typically do the opposite to shutting off, I rev myself up by listening to a pre-set playlist. I warm my body up with some movements and then visualise the stages I’m about to drive.”

On the start line
“I have a set routine to get me focused on what I’m about to do and by the time I’m on the start line I’m ready, the nerves are gone and I’m in the zone. I have a sports psychologist who has been helping me for over a year. It’s very interesting how we work, and what we have to do to get into the right head space, but I’ve found it useful and would recommend it.”

Pre-event Preparation

Pre-event planning that many people do has a major effect on mental preparation. Ensuring everything is in order before you set off can give you vital head space when it comes to dealing with nerves. “There’s a thing called the nested model,” explains Cameron, identifying a philosophy in which decisions taken at a micro level are embedded, or nested, within bigger aims. “It comes from Olympic sports, and it’s about how everything you do today funnels into your longer-term activities and goals.

“It goes right back to the training and fitness you do in the offseason, well in advance, and the work you do to learn a new track or Rally Stage maybe four weeks ahead. Then, in the last week it moves to your actual pre-event preparation and on the day, it is about planning what happens if the weather changes and planning your food and hydration. A lot of drivers worry about whether they have packed everything and made all their arrangements so the night before, you need to have the list of things ticked off. Some drivers will even put a pack list on top of their bag, checking off what’s inside. These are all things that funnel into being mentally focused on the day.

“If you’ve planned and prepared well, the unexpected things will have less impact – but if you haven’t, and say you have to rush to buy food because you didn’t bring any, or you run out of something and have to go get it, you’re building on your cognitive load so you’re going to increase the level of anxiety you’re experiencing.”

For Sampla, pre-event preparation is vital for “mental priming” in which mindfulness techniques can be used to get performance ready and prevent overloading the body or the mind. He adds: “You need to shift all the focus to tangible strategies you can do for the race weekend, setting the intentions and what you do each day to move towards that. You need to focus on things you can control; training, getting your kit ready, creating a self-talk plan ready for the weekend, and developing an affirmation – which could be as simple as ‘I’ve got this’ – that you can tell yourself on the race weekend if you find yourself feeling the pressure.

Sleep, of course, also plays a major factor in mental preparation and both experts conclude that a good solid seven to nine hours, with a regular sleep pattern, is most conducive to a healthier mind come the event. In fact, Sampla believes it is one of the most important factors of all when it comes to achieving a good result. It is not necessarily the amount of sleep, but the quality which has the biggest effect. Not all sleep is equal, and the periods when our body drops into deep sleep is best for reparation and rest. The longer we stay in that zone, rather than entering the lighter REM stages of sleep, the better our race weekend will be.

“Sleep is a free, legal performance enhancer,” explains Sampla. “It is the basic requirement for health and recovery, and research has told us time and again that there is a very strong association between sleep and athletic performance. Drivers need to react at high speed and when sleep is poor, all the super important functions are slower and much more depleted.”

Susanne Callin, Drag Racer

“I don’t get nervous before an event or in qualifying, but there are definitely nerves flying around on race day. I never sleep well the night before. I’m more nervous watching others I care about than I am for myself. I have a habit of doing everything pre-race in the same way every time, just to get into race mode. That familiarity helps to keep me calm. I often take a little quiet moment to myself with a few deep breaths before starting to put my gear on, then I just take it easy, stay out of the way of everyone, stay quiet and keep a low energy.

When we get moving to the lanes towards the track, there’s another rush that picks me back up again. I usually like to walk down on my own, then getting in and buckling up is almost
automatic because I do it in the same way each time without any unnecessary chit chat. I like silence and once I’m in the dragster I like to be left alone. I also like to get in early. If we are down in the pitlane and everything is delayed, nerves start building up and I do not like waiting so I start pacing around. I prefer to sit in the dragster, even if I know I’ll be there for a long time or it’s way too hot for comfort, because once I’m in there, I’m in my own little bubble. There’s another rush of emotions and nerves as you slide down into the seat, but everything settles quickly as you sit there waiting to get going.

On the start line
“Absolutely everything goes way once the engine starts. It’s like the world disappears outside. It’s all down to me now. I need to get the job done. When I pull up on that start line, my vision is so narrow all my focus is going straight ahead to where I’m going. I’ve never used a mind coach or had any advice, but everyone is different and responds to different things.
I have two girls that also race, and one thrives on being hyped up, while with the other you have to act like it’s no big deal and almost pretend there’s no racing going on! You have to find what works for you, and it all gets better with experience. Racing is always racing –and I think you should have a little bit of those nerves left to keep you on your toes.”

Getting in the zone

On race day, with a good combination of pre-event planning and mindful mental preparation, managing the nerves and any reactions to unexpected moments comes far easier. Yes, you feel more nervous as the race draws closer, but if you can keep it at the right level that can be your performance advantage. That fine-tuning can be achieved by visualisations – taking a physical track walk but also doing a ‘mental’ track walk, visualising the perfect lap in your head, or even taking a ‘mindful’ track walk, feeling your overalls, your race helmet, your gloves, and feeling your steps on the ground to get right ‘in the moment.’

Sometimes there is no suppressing those nerves, and in that case, Cameron believes that talking through it can be a real help. “If a driver is feeling over-nervous, there has usually been some failure in their preparation,” he says. “At that point you have to look at how to get them to believe in themselves and bring those nerves back in the positive area. It could be discussing a previous experience – ‘you did it at Donington so you can do it here’; it could be a vicarious experience – ‘look at those guys, you’ve beaten them before and they can do it’; you can verbally reason – ‘it’s just a track and the fact it’s raining just means you change your driving style’; or it can even be just re-labelling things.

“A driver coach can do a lot of those things, but there is a point at which you have to refer to a sports psychologist, a professional in dealing with not just the rational but also the irrational, to tackle the things which are in the psyche that require a little bit more expertise and a bit more practice working it through.”

Some drivers take naps during race weekend, and although this is more to help the body recover from high intensity physical demands, it is also mentally beneficial and Sampla explains: “Napping all the time can be associated with poor quality sleep, but occasional naps can be really beneficial for replenishment and recovery, physically and mentally.” Pre-race music is another tool that can be used, but again, that has good and bad sides to it and Sampla continues: “Listening to different tones or genres can help regulate and manage nervous energy – whether it is a calming music, pumped-up music or music that evokes a helpful image or memory – but the impact of music for performance varies considerably.”

Research shows there is a link between music and what’s happening in the function of the brain – certain music encourages the production of dopamine, releases endorphins and helps to calm the central nervous system – but I usually find it can go either way, so it can be super helpful or super unhelpful for driver. It can be useful the night before to bring some calm and help us sleep, and on the way to race day we can use music to help motivate us, to set us in the mood, but it can be unhelpful if it’s used to fight or shut off thoughts and feelings, and it also might take us away from being present, being in the here and now.

Ultimately, music is just another tool that can be used to manage the mind – but Cameron warns that you must avoid becoming reliant on it, adding: “If you always listen to Taylor Swift before you go in the car, for example, what happens when you forget to bring that music, or your WiFi connection doesn’t work? Creating a dependency on anything when it comes to mental preparation is not good, but creating a pre performance routine – doing a warm up to activate your muscles and get your heart rate up and using motor imagery to think about that first lap or the drive to the first lap – all helps you get in a place of attentional control and avoid distracted thoughts.”

Sampla adds that using breathing techniques – which can be as simple as taking 10 deep breaths – once you are in the car can make a huge difference to your mental state because it activates the parasympathetic nervous system and this is associated with reducing anxiety, standardising the heart rate and bringing calm. This technique is useful on the start line, and it can be useful when you experience unexpected incidents. The way your mind manages a problem – a missed gear, a failed overtake or a racing incident – can make a huge difference to the way your weekend plays out.

Watching onboard clips of Max Verstappen taking a trip across the gravel in F1 shows just how much influence this can have. Although a supreme master of car control and extremely talented champion, he will often lose his mental state if he makes a mistake, blurting out a bleeped response then making a second mistake because of his frustration. In contrast, other drivers are far more matter-of-fact, stating calmly to their pit crew what has happened before getting back to the task in hand. It is that approach, being in the moment and not reflecting on the past, that showcases just how well both mindfulness and attention control can work.

“The term of acceptance often gets a bad rap because it’s seen as a resignation to something that happened, but that is how things hold us back,” says Sampla. “To give ourselves the chance to restart, to begin again, we need to let go of things and that is not saying ‘I don’t care’ but more ‘I care about this enough for me to start again.’”

Cameron believes doing this comes easier when other core challenges have been mastered and adds: “If a driver is consciously thinking about braking points and apexes, that’s taking up cognitive capacity and it’s hard to handle an unexpected moment. If they have developed unconscious competence, then they have that [extra] cognitive capacity to cope.”

Extra Performance

It is now common for people to seek the expertise of a performance coach, many of whom will implement mental training and preparation within their routines. However, getting deep down into the mentality of motorsport is something that is still a relatively unknown art, but a growing practice at many levels. Using a specialist sports psychologist – specifically one that is accredited within the field and has gone through the holistic scientific route – can offer huge benefits, developing strategies and tools to manage pressure and deal with nerves by being present, focused, and in the here and now.

Sessions are typically carried out confidentially on a one-to-one basis, usually in packages, and Sampla concludes: “Mental preparation is absolutely crucial to performance in motorsport. When we train, we go to the gym and train our body to become fitter and stronger, and that’s exactly the same as what we’re doing in the mind. Often there are lots of myths associated with performance psychology, which stops people getting the support and help they need. We are in the business of helping an athlete be performance ready and our goal is to support them in achieving their goals, just like an engineer, just like a gym coach.

“Most drivers have good driving technique, so what stops one from reaching the podium when another does? It isn’t more so the technical skills, it’s the thing between the ears. The things that happen in the mind. The thought that gets in the way. The distraction that gets in the way. The pressure that gets in the way. When we develop mind techniques, it takes
commitment and time to see the difference and the tangible gain, but the more we practice the mind, the more we take it to a mental gym, and the more we make the mind work for us, the better the performing situation we are able to create.”