Web3 and Formula 1: A Perfect Collision - TOKEN2049 Singapore 2023

[Music] [Applause] take a selfie with the crowd so make some noise all right one two three guys [Applause] I'm trying to take everyone all right thanks big crowd I'm sure all of you are very envious of me here sitting opposite Pierre gasly Pierre of course is a man of many talents last night actually he really whipped the ass of many people right so he was playing I don't know how many of you know five stones as a kid you know okay so it's a it's a very Singaporean game that we play as children when we don't have access to computer MPA just with all the Heirs of singaporeans so he's so good at it he's so fast at it Rubik's Cube he did that too right so he is a man of many Talent he is very sharp with motoring skills and he's very very competitive great um so I wanted to start the session we have t-shirts signed by Pierre gasly to give out so I just wanted to start the session with uh with two questions for us to give out those t-shirts and then we will ask them progressively at what and the fastest person to raise their hand and give the answer will get this t-shirt right okay at what age did Pierre gasly started racing yeah okay the gentleman over there yeah the gentleman over there the one that's standing up six all right okay and this question I asked Pages before the event right which is Pierre's favorite racing circuit in the world I I'm going to give you four choice you don't need a choice okay you go ahead Monte Carlo yeah correct Monte Carlo okay there you go thanks okay let us start so thanks thanks for being here again yeah it's a great pleasure uh Pierre you're the first Formula One driver to launch nft for fans right so what really sparked your interest in the first instance into things like crypto web tree and launching an nft so tell us that Journey um the journey that um started for me at the start of 2021 and you know like we have such such a massive community in Formula One we have a huge fan base as a sport and also us as drivers and I always try to find new ways to engage with my with my community with my fan base I always try to yeah find new way to interact with them and obviously with the blockchain technology it just provides way more opportunities and way more ways to to do it so I would say that's the something I wanted to explore um when we did the first drop in 2021 which was actually a massive success I must say I was I was very positively surprised because it was a sort of first try out um and uh which uh turned to be to be very positive and all the fans loved it and I would say that was the the main idea behind it to find ways to engage with uh with my my fan base that sounds very good um and for those that do not know you were directly involved in delivering the utility for the our Alpine fan tokens for binance right and what your thoughts you mentioned briefly in passing but what your thoughts in terms of the utility as well as the access that all these fan tokens bring to the fans firstly and then secondly how does it change or how does it shape the relationship between sports person driver like yourself and the fans on the other side of the fence well I I will say that um it's very important and very positive today you know as a as a sport person and also as a team you always try to as I mentioned find ways to get our fans on board on the journey because a sport at the end is entertainment without the fans being part of it Sports doesn't exist you know um so we we are in a in a very lucky position but we we got a entertain and get them on board and that's what we managing to to do with the blockchain by giving experience through this um Alpine fan token we get them on board we engage them through the platform you got different level of rewards and you get up to uh you know a live experience driving a Formula One car on import record on the the French track which is uh one of my favorite not my favorite but one of my favorites and and that sort of experience we get virtual um you know q and A's or um you know sort of meet up with with these fansos just providing live experiences through the Alpine fan token yeah so I'm just going to move slightly different again to racing and then moving back to technology so other than plenty of talent it takes years of hard work commitment perseverance to reach the top Echelon where you are right so what brings you here and what motivates you to to bring you here and what continue to motivate you and for you how would you define success well that's a very deep question I'm still jet lagged so it's a attacking history with the questions but I I like that I will say you know success obviously can be defined in in many different ways uh depending the the subject and the environment that you're you're talking about but um I will say what got me here I will say is definitely my mindsets mentality I've always been obsessed with these winning mentalities since I'm a very young kid and I think that really pushed my own boundaries since I was a child like always trying to extract more from myself I said really high expectations which were very hard to match um as a kid but it always gave me some Soulful some sort of self-reflection on my performance okay how can I get better I'm talented but how how am I going to get the age on on the others and there is no secret everything comes by work and you got to be very disciplined you got to have a very strong work ethic I have a very strict routine to really get the age on all the other talented kids that come through and and from my generation and I would say success also comes from all the failures that I had to face at a young age because through failures I've learned so much from you know how to stand back up how to learn from these failures to make me a more complete and stronger athletes a better person but also a better athlete and you're learning about yourself and you're learning about overcoming these failures and I think through my journey you'll learn from all these experiences and yeah you're just finishing the puzzle to extract the full potential of yourself great so if I mean you have all these mental 42 competitiveness in you and if you're not a Formula One driver for instance this is a curveball question right if you're not a Formula One driver what would you want to be um there there is a lot I want to explore in the world like I'm obviously a massive fan of Motorsports and um sort of like sport alcoholic but I started with football I love football it's my second passion besides beside formula one but I was really always seeking adrenaline in my life and I would say jet fighter pilot okay now it's obvious it has to do with speed everything has yeah everything needs to be related to speed but uh you know Maverick I would have loved to be I would have loved to be a Maverick I think a lot of us so yeah that was definitely something that I was keen on trying and I hope I get the chance to experience the feeling of speed inside the jet fighter and also astronaut so again related to speed yes you gotta go fast I think I'm definitely addicted to that sort of feeling higher faster quicker I'm going to ask two more questions about Pierre right so get ready um where which circuit the pier first got his first Podium finish the lady over there Podium not win the Italian Grand Prix that was my first Victory about this yeah that's the first Victory not not first wooden finish wrong answer sorry no yeah Brazil is the correct answer Brazil in telagos is it yeah that's correct right yeah okay thank you okay where did he win his first ground it really was his teachers I think he deserves all right so so let's continue um so we discussed a bit about racing we discussed a bit about your journey and your view of things like web3 Etc so the next one is really if you look at it driving especially Formula One it's all about innovation uh other than the talent and the the competitive stiffness of the driver is really about there's a lot of innovation there's a lot of Technology involved and a lot of those Technologies subsequently got filtered into the mass-produced cars but it takes a couple of years what what are you seeing in a web tree space or in the nft OR fan token space that you see lies a good future in terms of mass adoption for the future right well I I think as you mentioned obviously F1 is a you know massive into Innovation um you know down the line everything we're finding in terms of technology in Formula One is bringing into a mass Market into the you know old all day car that you find hybrid system was first developed in Formula One Electric System that you find in these days cars are developed through through Motorsports so yes there's a real correlation um and then yeah to follow on on the web three I think it just opens billions of opportunities and just looking from when it started when I started looking into it and and where we are now in 2023 you just see all the development all the evolution in terms of possibilities opportunities for entrepreneurs new creating new businesses and through blockchains and and web3 all actual companies uh resolve resolving millions of solutions finding Solutions to their daily problems um that you can face and I think it's you know we haven't seen obviously anywhere any other full potential of what the the blockchain and the technology can can bring to our um to to the world and in terms of solutions but it's definitely bringing solutions to to current problems we're facing all future problems we will have I'm not quite sure how many of you know know about this but PA has recently partnered binance on a very exciting helmet design contest right and the response has been overwhelming I'm not quite sure whether any of you have submitted that helmet design yet but yeah I think you're going to wear the winning helmet at the final Grand Prix of the yeah so if you have not please do so tell us the significance of that particular design contest right and why are you passionate about this competition uh on on this on this front um I'll make design you know it's it's very personal as a driver you know we have the delivery of the the team on the car we got the race shoot from the team but the only personal item we have where we can have a um an impact to stand out compared to to our teammates or the rest of the grid is our is our element design and since I was a child I always loved to take like a piece of paper and sort of draw and come up with all sort of designs and you know I remember watching formula one back in early 2000 and remember Michael Schumacher with a you know like a very red reddish helmet in these years in Ferrari Cena at the very like full yellow um yellow helmet back then and I feel it's it's it's very personal and now we got the chance to have so many races that I stick to one standard design for most of the race but four or five times a year I like to come up with something a bit more either flashy or a bit more like um to pass some message through the helmet or dedicate it to a person or you know like work with Charity or basically use use that personal item for good use and yeah it's also you always get great ideas from the fans they're so active I'm you know I have something in mind but I love to explore and see what people come up with because sometimes it's so different that what I will think of or what I would imagine but I actually like it and for a one of race I find it really cool and again I talk about engaging with my with my fan base I think it's another another great way of doing it oh so stay tuned for those uh looking to participate in that design contest I I believe it's still open I'm not quite sure but I believe it's still open so may the best design win and we are looking forward to to seeing that this winning helmet in Abu Dhabi uh coming back to Singapore uh this is your Harmony time visiting Singapore I think I first came in 2015. okay so it has been like I didn't have any beer I still don't have much but it has grown over the years and you're telling a Chinese that you know Chinese have very little facial hairs but coming back to Singapore the Singapore night race right uh this is going to be exciting race why is it challenging for you the Singapore night race and what are you looking forward to during the race first of all I hope I'm gonna see you guys cheering for for helping and for my team over the weekend [Applause] um I think it's probably fair to say it's the most challenging weekend of the season for tourism it's extremely hot and extremely humid so inside the car is once you put the race suits fireproof underwear ballac lava helmets it reach up to 50 55 degrees inside the car so for two hours it feels like you're inside the sauna literally um performing um you know at full speed so it's the race um where we lose the most um weights so by the end of the race I'll be three four kilos down very good for diet if you're looking to lose any weight it's it's very I should try it at something but but it's um it's just the cognitive uh Challenge and uh mental challenge of staying focused we're still going through these streets 300 over 300 kph and you can't do any mistakes if you miss your Breaking Point by a tenth of a second you're crashing in the wall so you got to be extremely precise it's a very twisty track um which is one of the reasons why one of my favorite to be fair a lot of Corners a lot of Reason Street Track means um more dangerous or more adrenaline which leads into more excitement for myself and also for the mechanic on the mechanical side for the teams it's it's very difficult um try to set up the car properly car is bouncing a lot of bumps um you know it's not a traditional race track like F1 cars are not made really to run through the streets and especially at these sort of speeds but um it makes it a great uh challenge for for all of us and and really really excited about it that's great um and F1 has one of the fastest growing sports fan base globally right so if you watch everyone you know you have very passionate and enthusiastic fans like some of you them in the crowd today what do you see I mean what excites you the most about being involved in F1 and how do you see the future developing for for F1 I mean it's absolutely amazing to be in Formula One at the at the moment the sport is booming all over the world we are seeing seeing it's every Grand Prix we're going to we're sold out everywhere Netflix for the ones um who watch the the show just brought a huge exposure to our Sport and kind of more like behind the scenes and showing a bit more about the personalities of the drivers because obviously you see us with a I think probably most of the people don't even know what I look like they know what's what I look like with my helmet and race here but you are not used to see the drivers outside their race cars and obviously humans like everyone else and uh I think they really managed to put the spotlight on our personalities um as as driver and as athletes and people jumped on jumped on board and and we can see so many people showing up to all our grandparies and we need them you know we need them without without them as I mentioned there will not be any sport or this pole sport will be very different so no I still think it's gonna grow but at the moment I must say I'm enjoying it fully as the fastest car in the world racing you know around the the world in the best race tracks in the world so you know I'm lucky enough to you know be part of it and I don't even want to call it a job because it's so much fun like I'm loving so much what I'm doing that uh that I don't I don't think it's fair to call it a job but it's definitely an amazing time to be part of formula one that's great to hear we are running out of time but just one last question right uh what advice would you give young and old aspiring people that wish to ultimately be in Formula One as a driver um you said young crowd you said young crowd or Muslim young and old right well if you're over 20 years old I'm sorry to tell you a bit late to stop um but no yeah for all the the young crowd I must say you know I started at six years old um and I had this big dream of being a Formula One driver in the future and it sounds crazy and impossible because we're only 20 drivers in the world but I just think it's so important to pursue your dreams whatever they are and it doesn't matter regardless of the the probabilities and the chances to to achieve it just give it your best chances believe in yourself and you never know how it can turn out so yeah just go for your dreams well with that thank you so much again here it has been fantastic so please join me in thanking Pierre for his precious time thank you so much thank you and all the best all good luck for this weekend great thank you