Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Formula One executive and team principal at Mercedes; the most successful manager in Formula One history, leading seven consecutive drivers' championships.
On the island
Eight records
I love Massive Attack and Unfinished Sympathy was the first song that I came across when I was starting my own racing in my late teens. There was long journeys in the car in the night to the tracks and back, going fast on the German Autobahn. There were no limits there and it was very motivational for me. It brought me in the right frame of mind to go racing so I could listen to it in a constant loop.
The background of the song is about a young man and probably a sex worker and he just starves for her attention and it's something that I can relate to, not to the sex worker, but for me personally the title Mama is where my mother had to be a bit remote to protect herself and I can relate to that feeling that you're not getting emotionally what you feel you need or want. It's a total love deprivation in a way. But not done on purpose.
For a long time in my life I thought money can buy it. But just more and more and more money doesn't make more and more happy.
He's Scottish, so my wife's family is Scottish. The lyrics about Iron Sky is something that I can relate to because it says about when you can imagine it, you can do it and not let anybody tell you that it isn't possible.
It sounds a bit cheesy at first, and obviously it's queen, so it's never cheesy, but the song itself, it's sometimes played in, you know, moments where it can be a bit cheesy and it's we are the champions. And that song obviously we played it many times when we celebrated our race victories and championships. It's the emotion together in the team with the people that are involved and the bond, the tribe that we have created. So there's the emotions attached to it.
Not only I love the song itself, but in today's world everything is so self-centered. People never reflect about others' lives or tragedies. And I think we need to be mindful that we are living in paradise, the lives that we are able to enjoy because we are born in the right place at the right time. And it is important for us to remind ourselves about that. And we don't do that enough.
FallenFavourite
A song that we played at our wedding in Capri with a gospel singer in the church. That was a beautiful moment.
It is a love song, but it is a love song that is about protecting your family, protecting the people around you that you care. And that's how I feel about the relationship to my wife, to my children, to my family, to my friends, to my employees.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:04Toto time and again in the articles that I've read about your leadership style, the word perfectionist is used. How accurate is that description?
I think that there is no such thing as ever achieving perfection. It's a pursuit knowing that you're never going to get there. But I think it's within my character that I always try to do the things as good as I can, you know, have an eye for the detail. And that has been part of me since I'm very young. … People may say that I'm a control freak and I would say that I agree to it, but then also like perfection, there is no such thing as total control.
Presenter asks
3:19You have said about your attitude to winning, that actually even though you are incredibly competitive, you don't want to win at any cost. You want to win in the right way. What do you mean by that?
in a day and age where there's so much terrible things happening because of a lack of integrity or honesty or just a lack of humility, I think this is going totally against our values in the team. … And that's why I'd rather lose a championship than cheat.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Alexandre Dumas
It's a bit cliché, but it's the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. It is about unfairness, injustice that's happening, but then the revenge always comes.
The luxury
I'm really into free diving. I like the calmness underwater, being by myself. It's also linked to record holding. I like to know how deep I can go and how long I can hold my breath.
Your father was diagnosed when you were eight with a brain tumor. How much do you remember about what happened between then and he died when you were fifteen?
Yeah, it got worse because obviously he was incapacitated to work, so the company went down and from then on it was a literally every angle of life was a struggle.
Presenter asks
6:23Your family life had been quite affluent. You were going to a very good school, living in a nice area. How much did things change?
They changed overnight. I think from a nice house in an African area, suddenly your parents don't live together anymore. We went into a small apartment. There were moments where my sister and I had to leave school in the afternoon because the tuition fees were not paid. So how do you explain to your friends that you have to pack your bags and go home? How do you explain that to your 10-year-old sister in the tram? And I have these moments in my mind so strongly, it's like an imprint.
Presenter asks
7:31How has what you experienced [as a child] shaped you as a person?
You don't wish any child or adolescent to such a situation. But it has shaped me in a way that my determination is strong and my resilience levels are high. You know, when we don't perform in Formula One, that doesn't even move the needle for me. This is so far away from sufferance or from pain that I just have to make sure that everybody around me can go through this in a, let's say, most stable way. But for me, you know, if you've been in a mentally in a Siberian gulag, it's not going to affect you anymore to be in, you know, living in a normal world.
Presenter asks
22:02In 2021, the cameras captured your intense frustration during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. … How do you look back at that moment now?
Both drivers start with equal points into this race, best man and best machine wins. And best men that they didn't win. And it's still something that stings, not of losing it, because I would have been able, and all of us would have been able to lose that race fair and square and admit that. But it was stolen. And that made it difficult. … The FIA was with its next regime, a new president was voted in literally that month, was able to admit that a mistake was made and it was human error, that's how they called it. But obviously that was not bringing us the trophy back and was not making Louis the only eight-time world champion. But you just need to overcome it … Much worse things happen in the world than being stolen of a world formula world championship.
“I'd rather lose a championship than cheat.”
“you know, if you've been in a mentally in a Siberian gulag, it's not going to affect you anymore to be in, you know, living in a normal world.”
“I would have rather won the championship, but … today we have more fans.”
“The words depression and anxiety, they are twin brothers, you know, all of that is linked together, but nobody speaks about it enough. … even strong men and women, people that are successful in the public eye, suffer. … That's why you can suffer. It's allowed. And I want to help to take that stigma away because you can achieve anything in the world even though you have moments where you don't see yourself out.”
“I wouldn't want to not have it [the anxiety]. … it's a superpower. It makes me more sensitive. I can feel a room. I can feel the energy. You cannot expect all the highs without having the lows.”