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DakotaElaineee

Brisbane, Queensland

liked by yukitsunoda, vanessaxu, alphataurif1, jamiechadwick, landonorris and others

dakotaelaineee the beach is for lovers ( not lonely losers )

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brendanhartley nothing beats a sunrise surf !!!

---------- > dakotaelaineee sunrise is the best time to catch the queensland waves !

pierregasly do you give lessons?

----- > dakotaelainee not to you. ask nadri

landonorris of course shes having all of the fun without us

yukitsunoda sunrise is stunning, but i think you're even prettier : ) < 3

----------- > dakotaelainee love you <3 can't wait to see you again

( liked by pierregasly and 500 others )

vanessaxu broooo thats one of the nicest beaches i have ever seen

jessicahawkins1 bestie aston flies in in about five days and fourteen hours i cant wait for you to bring me to wherever this is for the barbecue : )

-------> lancestroll i second this

Seventeen Australia: VIDEO - Formula 1 Crew Chief Dakota McManus on Mental Health Sabbatical and the Mental Health Stigma in Motorsport

Q: Dakota, you said before you left the sport for this sabbatical that there was a double standard between the pit crew and the drivers, as well as team principals. Can you elaborate on that?

DM: Of course! So the double standard is huge, People in the pit lane tend to get blamed for everything in this sport, like the drivers are higher beings that can do no wrong, when they're just humans like the rest of us are. Max Verstappen [ Lead driver for Red bull Racing ] is allowed to a have a meltdown over the radio when something doesn't go his way, or when his car stops because of an engine failure he's allowed to get out and kick the million-dollar machinery and nobody bats an eye. Toto Wolff, he's the team principal for Mercedes, and he's known for his pit lane meltdowns when something doesn't go right, like the infamous 'it's called a motor race incident in Abu Dhabi last year. But when I was having my own emotional moment, reps from other teams are telling me that I should know my place, and that worrying about performance is the team principal's job, and I have been crucified by the sports media over this. I'm not saying I was in the right for reacting the way I did, but I am saying that something like this never would have happened to Toto or Max.

Q: How has the response to your break been from the motorsport world, internally?

DM: Incredible, really. Everybody has been so supportive, encouraging me to take all the time that I need. I got a call the other day from Romain Grosjean who used to drive for Haas, he went through something similar in 2018 when he was having a rough season and we really just had a conversation about my mental health, making sure that I was still in a good place. I also have a groupchat with some of the older guys on the grid, like Lewis [Hamilton, Mercedes], Fernando [Alonso, Alpine] and Sebastian [Vettel, Aston Martin] and they've been checking in on me, and I've been asking them for advice ans such and such. There's actually also been a lot of support from other divisions of motorsport, especially in the W Series, which is the women's division of Formula racing, and they are some of the kindest people that I have ever met. Everyone has just been incredible.

Q: It was really early into the season when you decided to take a break from Alpha Tauri, being only two races into the season. Why was that?

DM: I realized that I was too stressed to be working at my best. Hah, that rhymed. I knew that I couldn't go on like that, and that my head wasn't clear enough to be what my team needed. I have great relationships with both of our drivers. Pierre has been a close friend of mine since the very beginning, we both started out around the same time. I think he called us platonic soulmates, and Yuki is my soulmate, he's the love of my life, and I value both them not just as athletes but as people as well and I knew that being in the state that I was wouldn't help them develop this season, so really I was just trying to protect not jut my own mental health, but that of the team as well. We feed off of each other emotionally, you see. We need to keep morale high in the garage or it all falls apart.

Q: I've just been watching some old episodes of 'Drive to Survive'- brilliant show, by the way- and I could't help but notice that this isn't the first season where you have struggled mentally with adapting to things, and have seemed out of sorts. Of course, the 2019 season was already stressful enough , I think, with the deaths of Anthoine Hubert and Niki Lauda, and we especially saw how that affected the people that both men were close to but your mental health was kind of on the sidelines until the Mexico City incident was mentioned.

DM: Yeah, 2019 was tough. I had just been given my first contract, as the youngest woman to ever get signed to a pit crew after interning for a season with AlphaTauri, although we were called Toro Rosso back then, and a lot of things had changed right off the bat. Pierre had moved to Red Bull, our parent team, and Brendan Hartley, another friend of mine from that first season, he lost his seat. So right away I had to get reacquainted with the team, to get to know Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon, which was a bit of a struggle for me. That was a time in my life were I was still really insecure and socially inept. Right out of the gates, we had been having a really rough season and watching all of the other teams get to celebrate when we didn't really started to weigh on me so I adopted this 'work now think later' mentality to avoid having to think about it, and I thought that if I put more than I had in me into the cars or into my career, maybe I would be taken seriously, maybe the team would do better. I was haunted by all of these 'what if's', and the way that the 2022 season has been going, I could feel all of the anxiety from 2019 coming back and tha's why I knew I needed to take a break, because going back and watching that second season on Netflix, I could really see how bad I looked, how pale and how tired I was. I had never met Niki before, but my grandfather did, my granddad's been around the block a few times as crew chief, and just seeing the effect it had on him had an effect on me, I think. As for Anthoine, I didn't know him super well, but I'd gone out for drinks with him and Pierre, they were both really outgoing people and I think Pierre was even trying to set us up romantically, so even just to have that little bit of connection, the idea that I could have known him better, and then to watch him crash out like that also took a toll on me, it really didn't help where my mind was at at all. Yeah, it was just a hard year all around, I was really homesick, really anxious, and I wasn't sleeping enough with jet lag and all that. I don;t think I realized what I was really signing up for.

Q: So I think this is the question we were all wanting an answer to, Dakota. Are you still going to come back in time for the Grand Prix in Melbourne at the Royal Albert?

DM: Without a doubt. This time off in Queensland with my family has done wonders for me, and it has allowed me to clear my head and get into a better headspace going into the Grand Prix and I've been in constant contact with the other crew chief and with members of out pit crew, as well as a few engineers . Not enough to stress myself out, just enough to stay informed so I know what's happening back in Italy, and I'm ready to get back out there and do what I love. I've also been able to make a serious decision about my future within the sport and the role that I play, in regards to my conrtact renewal this year, so I expect to be able to make a formal announcement on that soon, after I've talked it over with my boyfriend  [AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda] because I want him to hear it from me first.