ALL IN OR GET OUT: Training an F1 Driver - Patrick Harding | FanAmp Insider

We sat down with Patrick Harding - performance coach, physio, trainer, and mentor to F1 driver Alex Albon - to dive into what it really takes, mentally and physically, to coach a driver at the pinnacle of motorsports.

Patrick has a wealth of experience from training athletes in rugby, football (soccer), boxing, and even the British Olympic Team, and has been with Alex Albon throughout his F1 career. He also transformed himself from self-proclaimed country boy to a Performance Coach in Formula 1. His vulnerability and honesty about the sacrifices and commitments necessary to succeed, both mentally and phyiscally, as well as the tools required, including having his own mental coach, will inspire you to follow in his footsteps!

Click below to watch the full interview with Patrick Harding, and keep reading for the full transcript.

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Introduction and Acclimatizing in Mexico City [0:19]

Greg: Welcome back to another episode of FanAmp Insider. I'm here with Logan, and we are here in Mexico City. We're here for the Mexican Grand Prix and are joined by none other than Alex Albon's Performance Coach and the Williams Driver Academy Performance Lead, Patrick Harding.

Patrick: Thank you for inviting me on.

Greg: How's your week been so far? We just got here and we're both super excited. So, how's it been for you?

Patrick: Yeah. So it's second race of a triple, so it's already pretty punchy. Got in from Austin on Monday. It's nice around here. So, we had a couple of days of training, eating well, sleeping, recovering. We played a bit of padel yesterday, but actually we ran the track this afternoon, it's going to be a 4k track. We both had a little look at each other and four minute kilometers is comfortable for us, but we were at like a 4:30 and we were looking at each other going, "is this you, is this me, or is this the altitude?"

We both agreed it was the altitude.

It's a different time type of aerobic load that they'll take in the car. They're not running the track, but obviously it is reduced in terms of the oxygen saturation. So there's a little bit of an extra impact physiologically. He'll be able to tolerate that.

But, we certainly felt it in the track run, that's for sure.

Greg: I was literally getting winded walking upstairs. So the fact that you guys went out for a run is already impressive.

Patrick: Look, it's a strategy to acclimatize, right? When we go to really hot races like Singapore or Qatar, we go to a heat chamber at a university in London.

We recreate the conditions that he's going to race in so that his body adapts to that. So even just getting out this week, like I said, about playing a little bit of padel and then running track today - it's just a way of his body adapting to the conditions that he's obviously feeling in the car.

They're not the same in terms of the G's and the air forces, but actually just in terms of the environmental factors, it's just a really good way of setting them into those conditions.

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Who is Patrick Harding? [2:09]

Greg: I know personally, having now watched a lot of races, obviously this season and in the past seasons, I'm noticing a lot more of the beard floating around the paddock.

Patrick: *laughs* The beard hasn't always been there. I will say, like the beard has been on and off. The last time I had the beard, I lost it in a bet to Alex, actually. I weirdly... It was when he was at Red Bull and the bet was if he got his first podium, he could shave it off of me.

We made the bet and then the next race, he got a podium. We even laugh about it till today that I should have made this bet six races ago. But actually we have a running bet every year. The beard bet this year is, or it's, it was the same last year. If he gets P6 or better in a race, he can bleach it blonde, like he bleaches hair up.

So that's the bet that's continuing to run. We've been very close to to that point like a P7.

Greg: I feel like he's probably more excited about that than the P7.

Patrick: Yeah. Like it comes to him every now and again. He's like "Oh, we still have that bet going". I'm like, "yeah, we do". I'm actually weirdly intrigued to try it, but I don't want it like blonde that he had, which was just white. I want a little bit more Viking, like a Kevin Magnussen, but that would suit.

Greg: All right. When that happens, we'll get you the Viking hat.

Patrick: I am Celtic Irish. So there's probably a bit of Viking in there somewhere.

Greg: There's one at home actually.

Greg: For the people who don't know The Beard, or you who is Patrick Harding?

Patrick: I grew up in Ireland, very simple background - farm and country. Just had a family who were obsessed with sport, always was. My dad was a coach. He boxed. Me and my brothers, three boys in the family, we all played football, soccer.

We boxed, we did any sport we possibly could. So it was always a really big part of our family and the older we got, the higher level that I competed at myself. So when it came to getting to the end of high school and thinking about what I wanted to do as a career, something that gave me an avenue into sport of also going to be an athlete myself was something that I was really keen to do.

I knew I wanted to work with people, and I didn't want to sit behind a laptop all day looking at numbers. So that was clear- that there was an avenue that I was going to go down. I went to university to do Applied Physiology for a couple of years, transferred into Physiotherapy, which is Physical Therapy to you guys.

That was my first undergrad degree. So started life in professional sport as a physical therapist, worked in professional rugby, professional football, moved to Australia, worked in Aussie Rules, boxing. Moved back to the UK from Australia and started working with Team GB in the Olympics.

Then for Rio 2016, I was lead physiotherapist for one of the British Olympic squads for four years, and that was really incredible experience. After that, I moved to Arsenal, Premier League football for two years. In that time, I did my master's degree in strength and conditioning. Then just opportunities came up in individual sports.

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How Patrick started working with Alex Albon and why they're a fit [5:02]

Patrick: I started working in boxing, started working in golf, and just really out of blue, through Twitter of all places, an opportunity came up to work in motorsport. Somebody had slid into my DMs. And just said, what are you doing right now? Had no idea what this was.

Greg: Wait, was it a hey you up or what was it?

Patrick: Yeah, there's no dodgy pictures haha.

It turned out it was this guy who is the head of the UK SCA, which is the UK Strength and Conditioning Association. He knew two of my lecturers from uni and somehow they'd reached out. He got my name and he dropped me a DMm and we ended up doing four rounds of interviews, didn't know what the job was really for.

And then at the end of it, he said, "we supply coaches to, Formula 1, 2, 3 drivers. Would you be interested?" And I was. I had no experience in motorsport. Wasn't a particular motorsport fan, like most people watch the first lap of races just to see where the action was happening and then would switch over to something else.

That was the first year that Alex was in F2 when he was fighting for the championship with George and Lando. I was with a Japanese driver, Tadasuka Makino, who was on the Honda Dream Project. He had a really solid year, but he went back to do Super Formula and Super GT in Japan.

Alex got the call to go to Toro Rosso. We had gotten to know each other a little bit through that season, because there were two Japanese drivers and Alex was very friendly with them. So, we were always in the same group. We got to get a bit of feel for each other. We just caught up at the end of that year and had a conversation about how we like to work and what our philosophies were around training and performance.

They seemed to fit together. I think we've got very similar beliefs and values about how we want to represent ourselves.

Greg: We actually were talking about this before. Like what is that, what's that feeling?

Patrick: For me, it's a feeling. Two things actually. One, it's a, "Can you articulate why you were here?" So I want to know that this is a really important part of your life.

You can be around Alex for 30 seconds, and you know exactly why he's here.

In that first conversation, he said to me, "I want to be a world champion".... and I believed him.

And the other part of it is the human element, which is - fundamentally, do we have the same beliefs and values about how we want to work together?

What's our values around work ethic and commitment and intention and how we want to treat people and the respect that we give each other and the respect that we give people outside of our bubble. How open we are to be challenged around our performance and how we are as individuals. To be able to be comfortable with being uncomfortable in terms of difficult conversations through periods of adversity.

Now, you don't find all of that out right there and then, but I got enough of a feel and hopefully he got enough of a feel for me that fit was right.

Greg: Did you explore it as a trial period a bit? Or it was just from the conversations you had you felt that?

Patrick: Look, we had a conversation. We did one training session together.

The person who had linked this up had a separate conversation with each of us. I think both of us just said, yeah, let's go. And that was it.

We're working together 6 1/2 years now. So it was very natural how it happened. And I like that. When I look at other drivers on the grid, there's probably not another driver out there that fits in terms of how I would want to work and the type of person that I would want to work with.

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The work ethic and beliefs that got Patrick where he is today [8:02]

Greg: In a past interview, you said, "I've been in professional sport for 15 years now, but I started working for free. I started at the lowest level of sports and accumulated as many hours as I could."

Where did you learn that from? Was there a - you had a hard day, someone gave you a hard time at your first job and like that kicked your ass and you learned, or was it something you've grown as you got older?

Patrick: Probably a small bit of imposter syndrome in there, but also a feeling that I had a responsibility to the people in my environment, and I didn't want to step into a space where I didn't feel like I had the skills to do my job properly. Now, I just said I stepped into spaces where there'd been a stretch, but that's fine, I've already had the skills to be there.

I always felt like the best way for me to learn was to get as much experience as possible. Even when that was education. I used to spend hours studying because I felt like that's what prepared me. So when I started working in sport, I was like, I want to accumulate as many hours as I possibly can here, across as many sports as I possibly can.

Just get as much experience with my physical hands on skill set, but also in terms of, "how do I deal with coaches, how do I deal with parents, how do I deal with other sports staff, sports psychologists, SSE coaches, performance nutritionists?" I've learned as much from being in amateur sport as I have been in professional sport.

It's just about your willingness to take from those environments what you can and you talk about not going through the motions. I talk a lot... me and Alex talk a lot... in terms of performance and about being present. When I talk about my coaching style in terms of one to one, my coaching intentional state is sacred presence, which is the highest form of listening and being in the moment.

In any environment, I'm always trying to learn as much as I possibly can. I guess I started with that, maybe I couldn't articulate that philosophy right then, but that's probably the philosophy that drove me. Also coming from the family that I came from, there's a really big emphasis on work ethic.

So it wasn't about always about how educated you were or, how special you were or anything. You could, get better by working hard. My parents worked really hard, my brothers worked really hard. So that was always a part of my values in terms of how I wanted to be in the working world.

So it fit in naturally, right? It was the opportunity that I need to learn, so let's get as much experience as possible. I don't mind working, so let's get after it. Look, if you're looking to make big money, you're not starting in sport. Let's be honest, right? About 15 years in, I'm probably getting a decent salary now.

I have friends who go, "Oh. I looked at a job in sport, but it's just not paying." I'm like "yeah, this isn't a sport, right?" I had a set expectation that, yeah, it's probably not going to pay well for a long time. When I got offered that Olympic lead role, I took a 40% pay cut, but I knew it would get me to an Olympics.

I was like let's do it. So I've never been motivated by the financial side.

Greg: I think a lot of people really discount the learning. There's so much value in just. Growing yourself as a person, both either what you see personally, like out in the world as you travel or professionally in the experiences you can have, right?

You went to an Olympics. How many people can say that?

Patrick: I guess so many young people contacted me through LinkedIn and Instagram and email saying, "I'm in my final year of university. How do I get your job?" I just don't even reply anymore. I used to be like deep breath, and say "here's some offerings."

I'm like eventually going... the lack of awareness in that question. I just don't even have the time to respond to it. It takes you 12 years to get to the point where you should feel comfortable even thinking about stepping into an environment like that. Every now and again, I'll get asked a really insightful question.

I've jumped on Zoom calls with people who've sent me really intelligent, insightful, honest questions around, "I'm thinking of doing this, but I'm not sure if it'll fit where I want to get to, because this is where I want to get to next."  I love that journey, right? So let's jump on a call and we'll have a chat.

I'll do that if the question is right, because that person demonstrates they're aware of what they want to achieve. That was probably me 15 years ago going a little bit of the "just want to be in sport, but I'm not really sure how. So let's just start here and just see what happens." Like I said, I had some people here and there who helped guide me, but it was a bit of trial and error through that initial process.

So quite happily jump on that, but for me, there's a big disconnect between what people see in terms of high performance sport, and actually what it takes to get to the space where you can be impactful in that environment

Greg: A lot of sacrifice. And I think to your point, it's like, you have to show up with that attitude of "I have to think through the problem".

I have to know the whatever steps I'm going to do, like asking the question, just get me there. How do I do that? Is not, you're not putting yourself in that position and trying.

Patrick: Yeah, you're always going to have fails, right? And I look back now, some people I work with and some patients that I treat are athletes that I rehabbed and I'm like, oh my God.

I should apologize to these people because, I was only doing my best with the skills that I had at that time. So yeah, when I reflect on that now, I would never handle it that way. That's just learning and development and growth. I'm comfortable in doing that. I'm comfortable in reflecting on that.

I'm really comfortable in being in a two way conversation with Alex. I'm more than comfortable for Alex to say I think we dropped the ball on that, or I don't think that's good enough. What do we need to do different? And I expect that from him.

It is a two way process. So if I ask Alex to be comfortable with being asked difficult questions, and I can't sit here and do that myself.... That was part of my journey. There's probably a lot of stuff I need to get past in myself. So if I need to show up for Alex, then I need to be in a good place myself.

If I don't fundamentally understand where I'm coming from, then how can I show up to support him? So that's been a really incredible journey as well.

Logan: What was coming to mind as you were speaking about that as well, was that you touched on your family and that you get a lot of your work ethic from your family and your dad was a coach.

So do you find that you can go to him if you're in situations where you're feeling uncomfortable, or do you think you got that mindset of having to accept the difficult conversations from him?

Patrick: That's a really good question. I would say for the time period that my dad worked as a coach, he was probably well ahead of the time period in terms of his philosophy of coaching.

If I reflect on his style, there's probably a lot of my style in his style, right? He was very player focused in terms of the philosophy that happy players make good players. He was very keen to support individuals. So if people were having difficulties outside of the training environment, he would be there to support.

So if that was school or family or whatever is going in that life outside it, because he believed that, like I said, helping people, fundamentally, he's a good person. He wants to help people, but having happy players were good players. That's probably a good chunk of my philosophy, which is - I'm trying to develop individuals who are also good at sport.

Alex is an incredible individual. It just happens that he's good at driving the car around in circles, right? That's the reality. He's not doing brain surgery and he's not treating cancer. He is very special at doing one specific task. Actually my role here is to help develop him as an individual because the skills that he develops as an individual, he just transfers them into sport.

Nobody has two personalities. We utilize the skills and behaviors that we've learned through our experiences in difficult environments in sport. What we're doing now is obviously a bit more special. We're refining that for a very specific environment. For me, I certainly learned a lot of the skills that I've got in those really early days, probably observing my dad.

Being in team environments with him, I like that. Being around other coaches who I've picked up little bits from here, there and everywhere. For me, part of the emotion around sport for me is feeling that connection back with my family. My mother knows more about sport than most guys I've ever met.

She wasn't necessarily into sport herself growing up, but she was sitting around the dinner table with three boys and a husband who constantly talked about sport. So she either got involved or she was left out. So she would be on the sideline of all our games. We'd be away and she'd be messaging results in games or like updates on scores.

She was a huge part of that development for me in terms of my sporting life and world. I learned stuff from her in terms of - my dad's a bit of a philosopher - my mother's pretty realistic. So that balance was really lovely. You go to my dad and we get a little bit of hype and like quite a philosophical approach to what just happened.

I go to my mother and it'll be like, boom, like this is the reality. So that balance was really nice. I guess I bring a little bit into what I do as well. There's the soft approach, but then there's a little bit tough a lot of times as well. It's just knowing when to employ that and when to use it and what individual as well.

Logan: Do you think he's helped you unlock certain aspects of your kind of coaching style?

Patrick: I've learned just as much from him as he's learned from me. Being in those really difficult moments and seeing how, he's responded to those really difficult moments has taught me about managing individuals in that space.

The support that somebody needs right there and then, but actually fundamentally. Either the really successful people are successful for a reason and for me to be able to recognize that now in other athletes and there's a couple of other people that I've worked with in the past and one currently who's a boxer. To come from really different sports, like technically any further from each other and culturally as well in terms of how to grew up and, the kind of money that's involved in their development.

Actually when they get together, Conlan, who's a boxer, grew up in Belfast. He and Alex couldn't be any further apart, but again, get on like a house on fire, because they can recognize a lot of those qualities from themselves in each other. That's their meeting point. They're on the same journey.

It's different sports, different environment, different culturally, but it's the same journey so they can recognize that in each other. I think for me, there was a really strong understanding and development through understanding what these athletes need and the support they need in these spaces to be able to unlock the potential that they've got.

I'd be remiss in saying if I didn't learn as much from Alex as he's learned from me, I hope.

Greg: Was that one of the things that, that drew you to working with individuals? Because you started, as you said, with GB and Arsenal and I feel like it's probably hard to connect with 20 guys or women in that capacity.

Patrick: Absolutely. There's been a couple of moments that I've reflected on in my own career, especially in team sports, where now I can look back and I've seen athletes come to me looking for help. In the moment, I didn't recognize it. That was a really tough reflection for me in terms of how I want to be in this sport and what I'm actually here for.

There's a couple of aspects to it. One is that I probably got a little bit squad fatigued. Professional football, you're dealing with 35 players. It's a little bit like NFL- we just need to play and be ready, throughout the season you're generally just trying to maintain, you're just generally trying to keep people on the pitch.

Then I started working an individual sports, and I'm being a bit binary about that. People in team sports do incredible work with athletes. It's just more difficult I think when there's volume. Then when I started working with individuals. I got the sense that there was a little bit of that, but it was more, we were looking at what the best in the world were doing in those sports, we were looking at what those athletes, the baseline they were at, and we're going how do we get there?

It felt like we were doing a little bit more around the development work. So that's what drew me to the individual side. I guess if I'm honest, I enjoyed the relationship development part but that's a key component of why I've stayed with Alex, because the relationship is so good.

It's a difficult role to be in with the amount of travel that there is, but when the connection is good and the relationship is good, and we're still on that journey that he told me about in that first meeting. I can connect with that and it's easier for me to stay.

With all of the individuals I still work with, there's that element of connection.

Greg: I think you have to, because then you really just feel like you're sharing something with them and you're like actually helping them grow. You're not part of a team where maybe it feels like it gets lost in translation because like you said there's 35 people to figure it out across.

Patrick: Yeah, I like I said, there's people doing incredible work in teams. I just think the depth that I get to with individuals... it would be difficult to do that in a team environment.

Greg: So when you started moving into the individual space, I guess if you think about your career and your own progression, did you ever have a North Star that guided you that said I'm on the right path?

Patrick: I've been really privileged to be around coaches who are a hell of a lot more experienced than me and a hell of a lot more knowledgeable and see people who are the best at what they do in the space that they're in. I learn from them and see what they do to get to that level. That's always been inspiring to be around.

I've always had good values myself around work ethic and commitment and intention. So my philosophy, people who write these five year plans and ten year plans, like I'm worried about what I'm doing this week and I've always lived my career like that. The weight of responsibility I feel for all the athletes that I work with, because this is their journey, they're doing something so special that I could never do.

So for them to invite me on their journey for this small period, because they feel I can add something to that... The thought of me missing something or leaving something out that would detrimentally affect that journey, keeps me up at night. So I live so much in the moment because I'm constantly thinking, what are we doing now is, could it be better?

What, we said about concentrating on Mexico, because we are, I'm just going, "let's get to Sunday and let's deal with this weekend and then we can worry about Brazil next week". From a professional point of view, I guess what that has done is that I've grown and developed because I've constantly looked at gaps in my knowledge and my skill base and I've filled those gaps either through interaction with other people or through education formally.

I'm in the middle of a PhD right now as well.

So I'm constantly looking to educate myself. Also I feel like by concentrating on what I'm doing right now, I probably do a better job than I would be if I was looking for a job six months later. So I'm also really micro - obviously we plan we plan across the year - but I'm really micro focused in what I'm doing in terms of right.

What's the next week look like? What does the next two weeks look like? And let's execute that really well. And then we'll worry about the two weeks after that, when we get there.

Greg: To try and play it back, tell me if this is right, but it's a bit of: Every day, you're taking a step forward, you're learning yourself, you're developing.

Then if you can look back and say, "Hey, I've been able to make this progress, and I know my work ethic is top notch, I'll end up with the right opportunity, whatever that might be, whether it's still staying here or moving to something else."

Patrick: Yeah absolutely, and look, when those opportunities come and that door opens a little bit, you've got to have the skill set to be able to keep the door open and step through.

Opportunities come along and you might not take advantage of them, but I've always felt like when an opportunity has come along, I've been able to give it back to the best of my ability and generally that has been good enough. Once you get the foot in the door, then you start to develop within that role, whatever role that is.

I don't think I've ever stepped into a role and thought, I know everything here. I'm ready to go. Every role I've tried to step into has been a stretch. The joy and the challenge for me is filling that gap in the stretch, which is getting to the level that I feel like I should be at, and then pushing past that.

Like I said, that's about my values around work and education and learning and doing the best job I possibly can for these athletes that I work with. Also it's about having these really special people support me along the way when I've needed that support.

I worked with a mental coach for the last six and a half years who's been really useful for me in terms of my development. I've had really special coaches around me and practitioners who I've been able to utilize for my own developments. And hopefully I've been able to give them something as well.

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Operating at 100% despite challenges and setbacks [23:57]

Greg: You've mentioned the mental coach, what is your support system? What do you need to be operating at your best so that Alex and everyone else can operate at theirs?

Patrick: Yeah, that's been a journey of exploration, right? One of the reasons me and Alex get along so well, we're both actually introverts by nature.

We're quite far on the introversion spectrum.

Greg: I would've never pegged that in my life.

Patrick: No, and I've learned to be extrovert in the spaces that I need to be, because they're all slideable. It's just about understanding what you need to do, whatever environment you're in. So I get my energy back from being on my own, being in my own space.

I'm not a big Instagram person, but the moon and the morning after a race. All you'll see is 6am, I'm in the park in London with my dog. That's my happy place, and I know that's part of my recovery place. Exercise is a big thing for me. Exercising helps clear my head. Having that little space on my own. I'm training every morning before we go to the track, just because it's a little time for me to get myself ready.

Race weekends are intense, there's a lot of people around, so it drains my battery pretty quick. Again, like we talked about, having Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for me and Alex just to be pretty chilled, not really doing much about training, eating well, sleeping well, so we get our energy back for the race weekend.

They're the kind of physical things that you need. Obviously sleep well, eat well, make good choices with travel, jet lag plans, but from a development point of view, working with my mental coach is really important in terms of my own understanding of myself. The reasons why I'm here and the reasons why I want to help people what motivates me to sacrifice what I'm sacrificing to be in this space and still be happy with those choices.

How to deal with the adversities that I'll face within the environments that I'm working in and then, releasing myself from some beliefs that I've had that I've picked up through my own experiences and my own development in the past and how maybe they're not appropriate for this environment and understanding that maybe I need to change some of those to be more effective and impactful in the space that I'm in.

It's like I said, it's taken, a long time to get to a really good understanding of what I need.

Logan: Do you feel like you ever question the level of commitment you're able to give to what you're doing based on the sacrifices you have to make?

Patrick: You've got to be all in. The second that you think you're not all in, then it's not fair to stay in the role.

What that individual is doing, whether it's Alex or Michael the boxer or an Olympic athlete I'm working with, that's their one opportunity and they've worked their whole life for them. You're either all in on what they're trying to achieve or just get out. That's the way I approach it. This time, a little bit earlier and that, me and Alex sit down and I, we have a discussion about what next year is going to look like and what he needs from me and what I need from him.

If we both feel like we're on the same platform still then it's a go. In an instant, if I thought for a second, I was even 2 percent out then I'm quitting that job because my responsibility to Alex is to ensure that he reaches his absolute potential, and if I'm not all in on that and I can have an impact on that positively or negatively, then somebody else should step into my shoes who is 100 percent in.

We've had difficult moments for sure in the past and different roles that I've been in where you're like "Oh, what am I doing here?" Like another flight or another racetrack or another football game or another fight week. There's always frustrations. Every moment I'm in, there's frustrations.

Williams is on a journey right now. It's not the easiest place to work at times. We understand that we're all on that journey together. It's my role to push on the performance side and ask difficult questions of people when we don't feel like that's the focus. I would expect them to ask the same questions of me.

It's always going to be difficult in moments, but, I think fundamentally it always comes back to a love of what I do. That's fundamentally why I'm here. I love sport. I love being in this environment. I love seeing individuals achieve something that's really special, and to be able to be in that space and see them do that is just a privilege that I'll never be able to articulate.

Greg: Stepping away, letting the emotion wash away. And then actually coming back at it with a clear head.

Patrick: It's like that age old don't send the email in the moment, right? No, write it, but leave it in your drafts and come back with the next day. 99% of the time, you'll have changed your opinion, or you might edit the draft a little bit before you send it.

So that's it, right? There's that emotional response initially, and we see it after it's right, something goes wrong.

Greg: There's a radio message with a curse word.

Patrick: Yeah, gets you in a lot of trouble.

Logan: A little community service.

Patrick: A little community service, yeah. Hardcore, but yeah. Some locker rooms that I've been in the past, we'd have had to pull a squad in that, in community service.

Greg: Yeah, thankfully that wasn't on a mic.

Patrick: Yeah, for sure.

Logan: With the Driver Academy, obviously, Williams is definitely a big family for you guys. When I think of family, I obviously think of people that you go through extreme highs and extreme lows with, people that you can rely on and fall back on.

Obviously, Williams went through a tough situation, like a very public situation, with the speculation of Logan Sargent's seat earlier in the year. What did you think you could bring to the team to, to help manage that before it was announced that he was even going to be switched?

Patrick: In that role, I'm very much just with Alex, right.

First and foremost, you really feel for Logan, right? He's a kid who was on a.... He's not a kid, he's an adult... Who was on a journey the same as Alex, had a dream to be in Formula 1. It just didn't quite work out for him at Williams. I think he held himself really admirably and anything I saw of him was a really committed guy trying to do his best in the space.

Alex and him were close and, the performance coach that worked with him last year and this year. It is like somebody's being removed, right? So there is an emotional void there. There's also an understanding that's sport, right? This is elite level sport, the elite of the elite.

Alex had an experience in the past where you got made a reserve driver for a year, obviously empathize with Logan and his crew but understand that, as difficult it is for them, we still had a race the next week and that was our focus, right? That sounds harsh and cruel based on everything else I've said.

Actually we understand what it's like for that to disappear or to go away or feel like it's going away. So every opportunity for us is an opportunity to perform and maintain the performance level that Alex has created over the last couple of years, especially, in his career there's an understanding that he still has a job to do.

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Reflecting on, and sharing advice from, his success [30:45]

Greg: Life's taken you from a country boy - self proclaimed - from outside Dublin to now being an elite coach, you're traveling the world. When you think back on that journey, what's the word that comes to mind?

Patrick: What's the word that comes to mind? I'm proud of it. For sure I'm proud of it. I don't often say that out loud, but I'm for sure proud of the spaces that I've been able to operate in and feel like I've contributed.

That's the main thing for me is feeling like I'm having a positive impact in the space that I'm in or the people that are in that space. So I am really proud of that journey for sure. I've sacrificed a lot to do that. You've talked about missing birthdays and weddings and christenings and, my parents are in their seventies and they live in Ireland and I've been living in London for 14 years, traveling with sports. I don't get to see them as much as I'd love to so yeah, there are the choices you make.

The outcome has to at least make you feel like the sacrifice was worth it. When I do reflect on it, I am really proud of the experiences that I've had and the moments that I've been privileged to be able to share with some athletes has been really special.

Logan: Is there a moment that sticks out to you as being like the most rewarding for you?

Not an, oh shit, I've made it, not something that is like one of your athletes successes, something that you're like, I'm really proud I was a part of this, I'm really proud of how far I came with something like this.

Patrick: I find that a difficult question because that makes me feel like I need to self praise.

Logan: As you should, that's good. You've done a lot.

Patrick: I have done a lot, yeah. I don't have any ownership over anybody's journey because that's theirs, but seeing them achieve something that they've worked their entire life to do and to know that in some small way you've contributed to that, you don't own any part of it, you've contributed to what they're doing, which is something very special.

That's a really fulfilling feeling. We touched on it a little bit. I get just as much from a good conversation with Alex about something that's really difficult. Again, he's been able to articulate himself. We've had a really good conversation about it. Then, as much as he did when he won his first podium in Tuscany, or he got his second podium in Bahrain, or qualifying in Zandvoort last year when he was P4 at Williams.

That stuff's really special, but like I said there's moments that people would think, Oh, that's your special moment. For me in the job that I'm doing, that's what makes it fulfilling is and from, you do question time that you give up and away from family and, but moments like that make it worthwhile, and you need them, right?

That's the hook, right? That keeps you involved and feeling like you're having an impact. I'm never going to be in a space where I don't feel like I'm having an impact and a space where I don't feel like I have the energy to keep pushing on performance and, that's still the case right now.

So the journey is continuing, but yeah, that's a tricky question.

Logan: Do you think you have like a piece of advice that you wish you could give your younger self?

Patrick: Yeah, that's a good question. I got asked that not so long ago. What I said was just not to be too hard on myself. There's moments for sure I missed because I was so intense on figuring out what I thought I needed to do in that moment and not enjoying as much the space that I was in and the privilege of those spaces.

So I'd probably say just be a little bit easier on yourself and the work that you're doing is good enough and take the time in those spaces to enjoy the moment. Be proud of what you're doing while you're there, not five years later when you look back on it.

Greg: Just to be able to go through how you think about keeping other people on their best game It's been really a privilege.

So thank you.

Patrick: Yeah, no problem. Thank you for inviting me on. That was really enjoyable.

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