ET Canada: "I needed to do something to get back to myself." - McManus opens up at F1 Miami press conference about losing her self perception to the team over her years in F1
MIAMI, FLORIDA - As Formula 1 makes its hotly anticipated debut in Miami this weekend, in a freshly built track circling the Hard Rock Stadium, Dakota Elaine McManus gives a brutally honest insight into her mental state, and the toll that being a member of an F1 crew has taken on her both mentally and physically.
"I lost my sense of self. All of the travel, never truly being able to put down roots." McManus said in a press conference early this morning. "I just think that over my five years, most of my life and energy have been devoted to the team."
McManus has been with the team since she was eighteen, and looking back, the crew chief believes that while she was thankful for the chance, she thought she was too young and wonders if that critical first year contributed to her rocky mental state in 2019, which was invasively followed by members of the team filming Netflix docuseries 'Drive to Survive'.
"This year specifically, after Jeddah and Imola, I realized that I needed to do something to get back to myself, to get in tune with the things that make me who I am outside of the sport. That's what my set at EmoNite was for, a way to connect with my roots."
The controversial F1 personality headlined EmoNite Brooklyn, delivering a raw throwback set that took patrons back to the early 2000s, and raised many eyebrows about her mental state following the release of the Leclerc Photos and how the twenty-three year old was coping under the circumstances.
"This job takes a lot out of you, especially working under Red Bull racing. Helmut Marko is a difficult man to work with, and I don't think I'm ever going to recover from the way I was treated, some of the things that he said. But that's a story for another day."
It's no secret that upper management at AlphaTauri's senior team have been very critical of McManus since the season began in Bahrian and then again after she announced she would be taking a two week mental health break from the high stakes sport following a raw and personal moment that was aired on live television.
"It's time for me to try something new, and to branch out. I don't know where the future is going to take me now that I'm out of contract, but that's part of the adventure, isn't it? For now, I'm going to focus on coming back to myself again, and being who I am instead of who other people want me to be."
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