Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has encouraged the men to speak out about mental health issues, rather than suffer in silence.
Wolff had previously referenced his own struggles with mental health earlier this year, when he revealed he had received more than 500 hours of psychiatric therapy since 2004, prompting rival team boss Christian Horner to praise the Austrian for going public and raising awareness of the issue.
As well as Wolff, several other key figures within F1 have opened up in the last 12 months about their mental health issues.
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton revealed in march who had struggled to maintain a positive outlook during a difficult year in the world, while Britain’s former teammate Valtteri Bottas revealed that he had suffered from mental health problems during a successful second season of F1 in 2014.
McLaren’s Lando Norris is another one that has been opened on mental health issues, saying he found it difficult to believe in himself during his debut F1 season, while Sebastian Vettel noted that sports stars should speak more openly about mental health, rather than seeing it as taboo. or a sign of weakness.
Wolff talks about past fights
“If you’ve had events that were hard to accept, whether it’s some kind of rejection, humiliation, or [a feeling of inadequacy]this all happened to me when I was a child and then a young adult,” Wolff said. Channel 4.
“I think I’m trying to overcompensate for that, so I’m torn between this ambition that I have and on the other hand my past and the vulnerability of the past.
“And I think that being frank in the same way that Lewis [Hamilton] is, and also Nico [Rosberg] has been, it is important to show that we are on TV and everything seems to be fine for us.
“But the truth is you can’t know what’s behind the scenes, and all of us suffer to some extent, even while living the Formula 1 dream.
“So be frank, seek help, you can’t solve that with a mate with beer.
“That’s why we want to be role models to especially encourage men to come out and say ‘I need help.
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