Former Formula 1 team owner Eddie Jordan believes the mentality of a racing driver is pivotal for their performance. Jordan, who founded the Jordan Grand Prix team in 1991, says he once lied to F1 race winner Jean Alesi about the setup of his car which made him go 0.5 seconds quicker at Paul Ricard. "When we were stuck and I didn't have enough money to have enough engineers, I used to be given the job to engineer," Jordan explained on the F1 Nation Podcast. "I'd always dive into the cockpit put my head around a guy in the middle of Formula 3 qualifying. I remember Jean Alessi doing the Formula 3 French Grand Prix in [Paul] Ricard. "I said, 'look, I've just put another half inch on the roll bar in the back and I've just put another couple of pounds with the two in or whatever it was, you will absolutely crunch it'. "I did absolutely nothing, never changed a thing, and he went down half a second quicker. I'm trying to say, 'what is the matter with these guys, they're just head bangers', all they need is their head stroking. "All racing drivers are full of crap and we know that because it's just mind over matter. What happens in a crash when you lose the front wing, they go quicker. It's a fact of life. "People adapt and adjust to the given set of circumstances. But when they come in, they're all full of data this and data that. Racing drivers, I can't cope with them." Psychology in sport has evolved significantly over the last decade in the search for marginal gains and to increase a sportsperson's peak performance. Jordan believes F1 drivers in particular need to be cared for and looked after in order to get the most out of themselves. "Racing drivers generally are fragile characters, like most sports people," said Jordan. "They need things and certain things said to them and spoken to them about how they can find that extra bit of confidence, but it works. "Anyone who believes that psychology does not play a fairly significant role in any sport as crackers. It does and it certainly does in Formula 1."
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