As the countdown to the 2024 Formula 1 (F1) season continues, drivers will ramp up their conditioning to ensure they begin the season in peak mental and physical form. F1 is an intensive sport that requires drivers to be on top of their mental and physical health to extract the best performances out of their vehicles.
Enter Formula Medicine, a cutting-edge medical-scientific research program that has changed how athletes prepare for their respective sports. The founder, Dr. Riccardo Ceccarelli, began his career in Formula 1 in 1989 as an athletic trainer at the Leyton House F1 team. He took care of every clinical aspect relating to the drivers, also working as a physiotherapist. Realizing how important medicine was to the application of the drivers, he founded Formula Medicine a few years later and is now a world-renowned leader in the preparation of athletes. Some of his notable clients have been four-time World Drivers’ Championship (WDC) winner Sebastian Vettel and two-time WDC winner Fernando Alonso. Other recent clients include Charles Leclerc and Daniel Ricciardo.
The success of Formula Medicine is not limited to only motorsports. Jannik Sinner, an Italian professional tennis player who recently claimed his first Grand Slam title at the 2024 Australian Open, has been vocal about his collaboration with Formula Medicine. Dr. Ceccarelli has been an extended part of Sinner’s team in 2020 with the collaboration of Formula Medicine and the Piatti Tennis Center. This collaboration created the ‘Mental Economy Gym’ to specialize in mental preparation training.
One of the unique aspects of Formula Medicine lies in its methodologies that place the athletes as the subject of scientific interest. Sinner explains, “It is a little bit different because you don’t talk one-to-one, but you do certain exercises on the computer and they calculate how much of your brain you used, and then they help you to make it as automatic as possible with using less time and less brain.” Unlike traditional mental coaches whom clients converse with one-to-one to try to find a solution, Formula Medicine uses computerized tests to observe brain activity.
Mental Economy Training, one of the services that Formula Medicine offers, began from a study carried out by the University of Pisa with neuroscience professors Pietro Pietrini and Emiliano Ricciardi, who understood that the difference between a top player and a normal athlete lies in the cerebral level. The method consists of hundreds of tests under stress to train athletes to reduce their emotional load when faced with mistakes, regrets, negative thoughts, and defeat.
Scuderia Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was referred to Ceccarelli at age 13 by his manager Nicolas Todt and made an impression on Ceccarelli through his evaluation tests. Measuring reaction times, concentration, visuospatial capacity, memory, and visual-coordination capacity, Leclerc scored 24 out of 25 possible points, a rare high score. Ceccarelli revealed only two or three drivers out of a thousand examined drivers in the past have succeeded. Leclerc’s flaw? He tended to get angry and lose energy as a result whenever he couldn’t win a test. While anger is a sign of energy and motivation, its effects can be counterproductive if not controlled by the brain. Ceccarelli states, “The key is self-analysis, the ability to understand and admit one’s mistakes, to overcome them.”
Ceccarelli describes the birth of Formula Medicine as stemming from a need to “focus on the athlete’s mind with a multidisciplinary approach.” In Ceccarelli’s headquarters in Viareggio, there are doctors, psychologists, athletic trainers, researchers, and physiotherapists who work in synergy to improve the psycho-physical performance of the athletes.
The first race of the 2024 F1 season will be the Bahrain Grand Prix, which will take place on March 2.
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