Ford’s passion for innovation combined with the knowledge that their target audience aretechnology-interested knowledge-seekers, led us to create The Psychology of Performance: a project to explore what a racing driver’s brain could tell us about everyday performance, with the ultimate goal of building a racing helmet capable of measuring driver brain signals in a live environment – something that has never been done before.

To achieve such an ambitious goal, for Year One we embarked on an initial study using a driving simulator to compare pro-drivers and regular drivers, and also assess the impact of mental training techniques on performance. In parallel we built a prototype helmet for a race situation.

We brought together leading neurologists, psychologists, Ford drivers, and technical designers to design and conduct the experiment.

We took our results from the lab and created a content campaign across Europe including native articles, videos, social media and influencers.

We developed a custom racing simulator using Unity3D VR. We then modified a medical- grade EEG-headset to work in conjunction with the software, allowing us to target nanosecond-accurate stimuli to our pro and ordinary driver subjects to measure brain activity. Measuring the effect on the brain of a specific distracting stimulus (called an Event- related Potential) allowed us to observe concentration levels in our test subjects, both before and after mental preparation exercises. These bespoke experiments were designed and overseen by world-leading neuroscientist Dr Elias Mouchlianitis.

This experiment was only the first step on our journey to achieve the true vision of The Psychology of Performance. To realise our goal of understanding mental performance in a live race environment, our second step was to modify an existing open-source EEG platform (OpenBCI EEG) and integrate it with an official FIA-approved racing helmet to create a prototype “brain-scanning race-helmet”.

The measurement protocol is ready and can help measure drivers by their mental profile. The specialist helmet product is at an early prototype stage, Technological Readiness Level 6, with future tests and development planned.

In 2017 The Psychology of Performance delivered a new way to measure drivers’

performance, a prototype race helmet, and an innovative, future-facing brand narrative for Ford.

Our long-term vision for the programme is to understand mental performance in real-time in a live race environment.

The implications of The Psychology of Performance will be wide-ranging, and include:

- The discovery of protocols to evaluate and optimise driver's capacity for sustained concentration, and sensitivity to track difficulty

- The potential for the EEG helmet to improve safety and performance

- The development of mental techniques to help any driver improve performance

The programme has received recognition from industry experts and has been featured in specialist publications such as the FIA Medical Journal. The content created from our 2017 programme performed very well. 66% of Ford’s target audience and 73% of motorsport fans felt more positive about Ford after engaging with the content.