Why the Most Important Data You’ll Ever Collect Is Your Own ECG
Published for World Heart Rhythm Week 2026
Picture a Formula 1 car hurtling through a chicane at 180 miles per hour.
In that moment, there are approximately 300 sensors on that car. They are measuring tyre temperature, suspension load, brake disc temperature, fuel flow, engine RPM, aerodynamic forces, and more – transmitting thousands of data points per second back to the pit wall. Engineers are watching every variable in real time, because in F1, you would never race without knowing exactly what your machine is doing.
That obsession with data is what wins championships. And it is the obsession that changed how I think about the human heart.
A Front-Row Seat to the Data Revolution
Between 2008 and 2010, I worked as Business Development Director at McLaren F1. It is a world that operates at a level of precision most people never get to see up close. I sat alongside engineers who were not waiting for a car to break down before they paid attention to it. They were monitoring, logging, analysing – continuously – because they understood that marginal gains are only possible when you have high-resolution, real-time information.
During that time, I was named as an inventor on multiple McLaren patents. I was not a racing driver or a mechanical engineer. I was someone asking a different kind of question: What else could this thinking unlock?
The Man Who Changed Everything
There is another name from that world that shaped everything I went on to build. Dr Aki Hintsa was the McLaren Team Doctor – a quiet, brilliant Finn who became one of the most respected figures in elite human performance. Aki understood that the human body is a system, and that performance – whether you are a racing driver or a professional navigating a demanding career – depends on knowing and respecting how that system actually works.
Aki believed in a holistic approach to health that was ahead of its time: sleep, recovery, stress, heart function, not as separate concerns but as one interconnected picture of a person’s wellbeing. He passed away in 2020, and the world lost a remarkable thinker. But his philosophy is woven into the DNA of what we built.
The Question That Would Not Go Away
When I left McLaren and reflected on what I had learned, one question kept returning: if you would never race an F1 car without continuous telemetry, why do most of us live our entire lives without ever properly monitoring the most important engine we have?
That question became a company. And it took ten years to do it properly.
Ten Years. One Mission.
Your Heart Check, based in Cumbria, is the result of over a decade of development. We did not rush. We applied for and received backing from Innovate UK, UKRI, and NHS Trusts. We worked with Microsoft for Startups. We built, tested, and refined, because this is healthcare, and there is no such thing as good enough when it comes to someone’s heart.
The centrepiece of what we built is the Blood Pressure Index (BPI): a patented algorithm that estimates blood pressure performance approximately every ten heartbeats. No cuff required. It runs continuously and invisibly through your ECG data. Nothing like it existed commercially. We had to invent it.
What Your Heart Check Actually Is
Here is how it works. You wear a small, discreet monitoring device for up to three days. You carry on working, sleeping, exercising, stressed, relaxed. The device captures everything.
Within seven days, you receive a personalised clinical report. Based on your data, written for you. This is not a consumer gadget. It is clinical-grade monitoring, the kind previously reserved for hospital cardiology departments, now available to anyone who wants to understand what their heart is actually doing.
This Week, Take the Wheel
World Heart Rhythm Week 2026 exists because heart rhythm disorders are among the most common and underdetected conditions worldwide. Many people living with arrhythmias have no idea.
This week, I want to invite you to think like an F1 engineer about respect for the machine you are running on. Your heart has been working every second of your life. It deserves the same attention an F1 team gives to a car before a race.
At Your Heart Check, you can find out how to get your own clinical-grade Holter ECG, your HRV analysis, and your Blood Pressure Index report from home, within a week.
This is #YourHeartYourRhythmYourStory. And there has never been a better week to start reading it.
— Dr Chris Crockford, Founder, YourHeartCheck
