![]() ![]() For the viewer, it seems just like a game. Confronted with a vast amount of information and a very clear target, he has to balance all of his skills and decision-making while avoiding any errors in order to achieve what would be the best result of his career at that point. Watch the final two laps of the season-opening Austrian Grand Prix on-board with Norris in the video above and you’ll understand exactly what he means. The two things are actually very similar.” The way you think about things, the strategies you need to think differently so you can out-play an opponent: What do I have to do to beat this guy? Achieving perfection, muscle memory, managing an array of information to make split-second decisions. "Driving and video games like Call of Duty are very different worlds, but they correlate in so many thought processes. How can I do this better? How can I improve this corner? Where can I overtake the car in front? “When I play games that require a lot of brain power, they keep me focused and they give me a similar feeling to when I’m driving a car. “It’s the same with a lap time,” says keen gamer and McLaren Formula 1 driver Lando Norris. This ‘re-play’ appeal has an addictive quality that fuels a quest to constantly improve one’s performance while in a state of ‘flow’, just as top athletes can’t resist the challenge to go higher, faster and further than they have done before. The simple act of beating a high score results in a sense of satisfaction that encourages a player to continually try to better it. READ MORE: 'I didn't believe in myself' – Lando Norris on overcoming the mental struggles of his rookie seasonĬrucially, this is a state of mind that makes people happy, and in the modern world a common activity that brings about this sensation is playing video games. Csikszentmihalyi labelled this moment of complete absorption into a skilled activity as ‘flow’. When running a 100-metre sprint, competing in a Grand Prix, or even playing a musical instrument, the brain puts aside mundane thoughts – and even notions of time – to enable it to function at a level best described as being ‘in the zone’. You have probably never heard of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, but he is the Hungarian-American psychologist who identified the highly focused mental state that athletes, including racing drivers, enter when they are at peak performance. ![]() How does playing video games or drifting supermarket trolleys make you a better racing driver? In a feature from the Official Formula 1 Magazine, James Roberts gets the answers from McLaren’s Lando Norris… ![]()
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