What happens when your dream job is anything but a dream?
Jaime Alguersuari was a prodigy. He was already a Formula 3 champion, and his meteoric rise to stardom was solidified when, at the age of 19 years and 125 days, he became the youngest Formula One driver to start a Grand Prix in history at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix. He was driving for Scuderia Toro Rosso (Team Red Bull) with all the tools, all the essentials, all the ingredients to be the next great F1 champion.
What he didn't have was happiness.
"The thing here is that when I started in the junior program when I was 15, they designed me to be like a machine," he told Conor Daly and Joey Mulinaro this week on Speed Street Episode 74. "They design you to be a bad human being."
"No happiness," Daly interjected. "No enjoyment."
"No, everything was bad," Alguersuari continued. "Even when you win, you could not be happy. Nothing was enough. [It was] push, push, push, push, and you felt that anxiety. You were living with that inside... That was the feeling I always had inside Red Bull. They were designing [drivers to be] machines."
Alguersuari and Red Bull parted ways after the 2011 season, capping a three-year-run. Over the ensuing three years Alguersuari worked with Pirelli developing tires, competed Formula E, drove for GT World Challenge in Germany a few races and even did some broadcasting before retiring from racing in 2015 at the age of 25. That's when he found his true calling -- music.
"Music started in my life when I was 15. I started DJ'ing and buying records. There was a huge culture behind it. I was attracted by this world -- the sounds, experimenting in the studio, creating and producting tracks, sending records and demos to labels. So it started to work out in a way, and I wanted to make sure it was happening under an alias. I had some clubs and owners starting to book me, and I found it as a way to communicate with the world."
Now a highly successful DJ and music producer, you can follow Alguersuari on Instagram and Twitter. You can also listen to his entire interview on Speed Street, which is available on this site and all major podcasting platforms.
-- Dirty Mo --