The Journal
THE PERFECT FLOW
THE PERFECT FLOW
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3 min
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IN A PERFORMANCE-DRIVEN WORLD, VICKY PIRIA SHOWS US THE HUMAN SIDE OF SPEED. WHERE INSTINCT AND REFLEXES NEVER RACE AGAINST TIME. THEY MASTER IT.
“Speed is a perpetual search for perfection.” Vittoria “Vicky” Piria knows the world’s most famous race tracks inside and out because they are where she made peace with her bitter rival: time. In the male-dominated world of motorsports, Vicky has established herself with unwavering dedication to a challenge she loves to call the “conquest of perfection.” When she’s not competing in the Italian Gran Turismo Championship, she talks about her profession and passion for cars on TV. Vicky gave us an in-depth account of her double life: fast-paced performance on one side and composed storytelling on the other. Brakeless.
— Ready for racing: Vittoria “Vicky” Piria on the F1 GP motor racing circuit in Imola
NAVIGATING BETWEEN STRATEGY AND GUT INSTINCTS
HOW DO YOU SEEK PERFECTION, AND THEREFORE SPEED, ON THE TRACK?
It’s not about stepping on the accelerator on the straight but about becoming one with the car. It’s my movements that have to be perfect. The fastest driver is the driver with impeccable gestures. I call it “flow”, the perfect flow. From a spiritual point of view, speed is the constant search for this flow.
WHAT MATTERS MORE: TECHNIQUE OR INSTINCT?
The most difficult challenge is to bring together two totally opposite emotions or ways of experiencing things: first, you deal with the engineers and mechanics, you analyze a strategy with them, and together, you make emotionless, pragmatic decisions.
Then you find yourself on the track, but if you drive and think about everything you must do, if at the first corner, you repeat to yourself, “Here I have to brake,” “Here I have to turn,” you are already late. My job is to assimilate all that information, but then driving comes from my gut: when I approach a bend, I’m already thinking about the exit. In this contrast between technicality and emotions, I find my flow, my rhythm. The most exhilarating moment is when you can drive without having to think.
When I trained in the driver’s center as a girl, I had a mental coach who made me do mathematical calculations and logic exercises while I was driving to help me find the perfect automatic reflex.
YOUR BEST FRIEND AND WORST ENEMY
DO SOME THINGS EVER BECOME SECOND NATURE TO YOU?
During qualifying rounds, I draw the trajectories in my mind and visualize a perfect drawing, which is the perfect lap. The goal is to transform driving at a very high speed into an automatic process. When all your movements are automatic, you can think in advance about steering degrees, braking meters, and acceleration meters.
When I trained in the driver’s center as a girl, I had a mental coach who made me do mathematical calculations and logic exercises while driving to help me find the perfect automatic reflex.
IS YOUR PERCEPTION OF TIME CONDITIONED BY PERFORMANCE?
Time is your best friend when it’s going well and your worst enemy when it’s going badly. There is no escape from time. Even the perception of time starts from gestures: if I’m doing a qualifying round and the curve doesn’t come as it should, I know I’ve wasted time.
On the driver’s steering wheel is a dashboard reporting time lost and time gained. When I was little, they would cover it with tape because I got distracted, and I wasn’t able to psychologically handle the pressure. I could only take it off after ten laps. Time can be a burden.
— Ready for racing: The Pilot's Watch Chronograph 41 TOP GUN Ceratanium® IW388106
— Vicky Piria wearing the Pilot’s Watch Chrono 41 TOP GUN Ceratanium® IW388106
RELATIONSHIP OF TRUST
IN ADDITION TO BEING A DRIVER, YOU ARE ALSO AN ESTABLISHED STORYTELLER. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR ATHLETIC CAREER?
As a child, I was obsessed – and still am – with horses. I trained three times a week. My father, on the other hand, was passionate about motors, and one Saturday, surprisingly, he took my brother and me to the kart track in Rozzano outside Milan. I was eight years old, my brother was six, and I was dying to compete with him just because he was a boy.
A year later, I was competing in regional competitions where if you won, they gave you a whole dried ham. My brother didn’t stick with karting, but I was dedicated to only drinking apple juice because I had read in an interview that it was Michael Schumacher’s favorite drink. When I was 15, my father gave me a Formula Ford class, which opened the way for me to Formula 4 and Formula 3, where I raced until 2021, when I switched to GT.
— Vicky Piria tearing through a curve on the Imola racing track
— Made to perform: Ceratanium® combines the lightness of titanium with the scratch-resistance of ceramic
MASTERING TIME
WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CARS YOU RACE?
A relationship of trust. But even before you trust a mechanical vehicle, you must trust the team that prepared it, opened the engine, set it up, and checked everything. I am the last cog in the wheel. In competitions, you only focus on the things you can control. If you start to think that the car might have a problem, you lose focus and time. What I have to do on the track is feel the car, understand what its limits are, and how far I can push it. When dealing with a predominantly male paddock, I use the same approach: I only worry about controlling my own actions, not what others might do.
HAVE YOU LEARNED TO MASTER TIME?
I have had to learn to slow down. The faster you go, the slower the time. A lap around the Imola circuit lasts one minute and 40 seconds, but the weight of every tenth of a second makes it infinite; such is the attention paid to my every gesture. Everything has a weight in those situations. If I’m walking in the mountains, that minute will fly by without realizing it.
— Vicky Piria “mastering time” during an IWC watchmaking class
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