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

**Peter Attia** (0:04)
Hey everyone, welcome to The Peter Attia Drive. I'm your host, Peter Attia.
The drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking, along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working with some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world. And this podcast is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality, more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode and other topics at peterattiamd.com.
Welcome to the bonus episode of The Drive. My guest for this episode is my dear friend, Dr. Paul Conti, who is not only the most brilliant psychiatrist I've ever met, but also one of the most amazing Formula 1 fans. Paul and I, on this relatively short episode, at least short for the metrics of this podcast, we just go on and talk about all of our favorite things in Formula 1, but primarily we talk about the history of Formula 1 and who are the drivers that we've loved the most. Of course, one of the things that we discuss in this podcast is that Paul and I have a number of things in common, not the least of which is our birthday, but our love for Ayrton Senna. We talk at length about Senna. Again, I think some of you who might be thinking, well, I'm not really that interested in Formula 1 or driving. I still think you'll find a lot interesting because one of the things that Paul does in this episode is he ties into this discussion of the great Formula 1 drivers, a lot of the psychological component of what made them great and what draws us to them. I will say that, well, as I've talked about before, my son, one of my sons named after Ayrton Senna, and I remember when I suggested to my wife that we should name him, name our son after Senna, her first thought was, who? And then her second thought was, what? But over about six months of this pregnancy, as she got to learn more and more about Senna, she was kind enough to humor me as I exposed her to Senna and his greatness. She not only came around, but really not only fell in love with the name, but fell in love with the idea of Senna and the man that he was. So not that we have any expectation that our son will go on to be a race car driver, but needless to say, little Ayrton is a special little guy, and he's named after someone that I've looked up to and hold in a very high regard. And so I think in this episode, we get into some of why that's the case, and also some of the other just luminaries of this sport. So you won't probably learn more about the relevance of Formula 1 in a shorter period of time than you will in this podcast. And again, even if you're not interested in driving, I really encourage you to listen to this because it will likely spark some interest. And I think the show notes have some amazing links to things that if anybody gets an itch scratched by this, they're gonna dig a little bit further. So with that, welcome to the first, what I would call bonus episode of The Drive, where Paul Conti and I spend a little bit of time going deep on our favorite topic outside of living better and living longer.
So Paul, we have a lot of things in common, not the least of which is our birthday. We share the same birthday, which is great because you're one of the few people whose birthdays I remember. I'm like a moron when it comes to birthdays. I have like an encyclopedic memory of many things, except for birthdays. But of course, every time I wake up, usually you're calling me to wish me a happy birthday, which is reminding me that it's my birthday.
I usually wake up to a text from you. The other thing we have in common is a, I think what can only be described as an obsession with, arguably, though I would say it's not arguably, definitively the greatest driver in the history of driving. I remember it was one of the first things we bonded over when we got to medical school because at that point, it had only been three years since Senna's death.
And for those of us who cherished him, it's a day that all of us remember, Sunday, May 1st, 1994 What is it about Senna that you loved so much?