MONACO WORDS OF WISDOM
HelloMonaco: You started your racing career as a child. Who brought you into the racing world? Lucas di Grassi: I was born in São Paulo, Brazil, and we had a big idol in motorsport, Ayrton Senna. So I grew up watching him racing in F1. I was doing a little bit of go-kart when I was a kid, because my father and my uncle liked it. But when I wanted to be a race driver was when he died in 1994. I was 9 years old and it really changed my mindset. When he died, Brazil stopped. It was a huge loss; I had never seen anything like that. It was very clear that he shifted from a regular racing driver. He meant much more to people— he was a sign of hope, something to be proud of being Brazilian. I had learned that if you do something in a sport that you like, you could affect people in a different way— not only in the sport. Ayrton Senna was an idol, a huge asset for motorsport and that’ s how I started. Then, later on, when I was in my twenties, and driving F1, I realised that Formula One was the pinnacle of the auto industry. I needed to use this knowledge that I acquired racing cars for fun to create something better for the planet, to create a positive business output. The reasons why I raced and how I saw the sport and what I could do with the sport changed over the years as my career progressed.
HM: What is your purpose in life? LdG: The way I see purpose in life, you have to do what you love and what you’ re good at; you have to spend time with people that you love and make you happy. And by doing all of this, you need to create a positive outcome for society. You need to evolve society, not retract or create a negative purpose. You have to either make people more happy or make society more sustainable, or make the world a better place for everyone. And I think this should be the purpose of everyone. By doing what I love, which is motorsport, I have to find the ways of making society better in that industry. For example, motorsport is related to the auto industry. And there are only two things you can do to make it better: one is to make the production of the cars more sustainable, like electric cars, or lighter and cheaper cars; and making cars safer, so less people lose their lives while moving from point A to B. If you take out everything else, this is what the auto industry has been doing since it was created. That’ s why I do these two things, which are linked to Formula E: the promotion of electric cars, and Roborace, which is the promotion of autonomous vehicles in a controlled environment. And I think that if I succeed on both— Formula E is already a success, Roborace will still take a couple of years— it’ s going to make the world a better place, cleaner, with more jobs, and much safer.
HM: Do you need to be in harmony with yourself and the outside world? LdG: It really depends on how you specify harmony. But yeah, you need to be in balance, you need to be able to focus on your job, like racing, or being the best racer possible. Or at least as best as you can. I think for every sportsman it’ s the same. You need to train the correct amount, you need to rest the correct amount, you need to have fun the correct amount. It’ s all a matter of making the world around you balanced and in harmony.
HM: You have to be so concentrated when you’ re racing, how does harmony fit in? LdG: On the specific topic of concentration, it’ s related to training, not harmony. Of course, if your head is not harmonised, if you have a personal problem or something is not going right, it is more difficult to concentrate. Your mind tends to think about it, it’ s like trying to go to sleep when you have a big problem. You cannot stop thinking about it, because it just stays there. Concentration in racing is really dependent on that, but it’ s also really dependent on training. It’ s very difficult to stay concentrated for an hour or two or three. And in racing, one millisecond that you’ re not concentrated … can happen a big accident, or your race is over. So this is the most difficult part, how to operate in a window of super concentration for a long period of time, without losing it.
HM: How do you overcome procrastination? LdG: Procrastination is a natural part of the human being, because the least amount of energy you spend, your body thinks it’ s the best way to proceed. So procrastination is just the tendency to try to do nothing, or losing focus, or relaxing for a bit to not do what you really have to do that takes energy and concentration to do. Of course, everybody procrastinates and sometimes I need to send a report about a race and I just go on YouTube and I’ m watching a video of someone flying in the Maldives … [ laughs ]. But you try with these short-term goals to keep yourself busy. Exercising helps, so every morning I go to the gym and I think that helps. And of course, ambition. You do some stuff because you want to achieve something. So this force, or
I don’ t think success is an end game. I think success is a point. I think it’ s part of a process.
HM: These projects are closely related to what Prince Albert II is doing. Are you connected with him? LdG: Yes, I know the Prince from the many events he has participated in Monaco, especially in Formula One, which was the first time I met him. I’ ve been in Monaco for nine years now and the last Formula E race we had here, I presented the Prince with the helmet I used when we drove for the first time ever, an electric race car on the Arctic Pole. So we took a race car to Greenland, and we drove on the glacier to show that electric cars will help the glaciers not melt. I gifted this helmet and the Prince was very nice to me and mentioned me in his speech and said that what we’ re doing is great and he’ s a big supporter of it. And I’ m super proud of what the Prince is doing, supporting Formula E, supporting electric cars, and smart mobility. And Monaco has everything in order to that. You have a high net-worth centre, which is very small and very controlled, so you can actually implement solutions to mobility that are super clean and super green. The buses are on hybrid already with bio fuel and electric bikes for ride sharing, and special places to charge electric cars in supermarkets and on the street. So we can incentivise the transition from fossil fuels in a much faster way. And the Prince is doing that.
Hello Monaco Summer – Autumn 2018 / 27