F1: Sportsmail’s HENRY CLARK visits Silverstone to discover what drivers go through in a race

Imagine the scene. It’s Sunday afternoon and you’re lounging on the couch with a cold beer in hand, watching 20 drivers push their spaceship-shaped cars to the limit on a racetrack.

As your hand dips into the snack bowl, a small but annoyed part of you asks, ‘Sure, these guys drive very fast… but how physically difficult can it be for Formula One drivers?’ Well, I was about to find out…

Ahead of the opening race of the 2023 season in Bahrain, Sportsmail was invited to the Porsche Human Performance center at Silverstone, where they promised to replicate the stress and strains of driving an F1 car on the body and show what it takes physically to reach the top. elite. Performance on four wheels.

This weekend’s race presents its own unique challenges. Even at night, temperatures in Bahrain can be north of 25ºC. But with drivers surrounded by hot tires and engines running at 100ºC, temperatures in the cabin can often exceed 40ºC. The drivers in fireproof boiler suits are effectively boiled-in-a-bag humans.

I was given a taste of that feeling when they told me to go into a small 40ºC chamber and jog on a treadmill for half an hour to demonstrate the physical impact on the body.

I walked timidly and as I opened the door, the heat didn’t slowly cascade down my body like it does when you get off the plane on your summer vacation. Instead, he charged toward me ferociously, like a heavyweight boxer advancing on his weary foe for the knockout blow.

And this chamber was spacious compared to an F1 cockpit!

“When you’re subjected to very hot conditions and asked to exercise and complete cognitive tests, your performance suffers,” says Chris Harris, sports scientist at Precision Fuel & Hydration.

“Your body is desperately trying to cool you down and the way humans do that is by producing copious amounts of sweat on your skin that evaporates. When there isn’t much airflow, sweat just sits on your skin and you end up completely drenched.

“Over time, the body doesn’t cool down, so you see an increase in your core body temperature, and in the worst case, you’ll have to stop because your body can’t function at such a high temperature.”

My steady jog for half an hour was enough to leave me a mess. My shirt might have been wrung out by the time the punishment had subsided and my skin, somewhere beneath the ocean of sweat, felt like a prune.

As far as the race is concerned, even last year’s winner in Bahrain, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, spent more than an hour and a half exposed to those temperatures that can leave drivers at serious risk of dehydration.

“When you lose large amounts of sweat, those losses can add up very quickly,” says Harris, who works with drivers to plan and regulate their fluid intake before, during and after races.

“Fighting dehydration in very hot and intense exercise like a grand prix is ​​very difficult because you would have to be drinking a lot. We have seen drivers lose 4kg in a race, so the performance benefits could be exceptional. But most likely, the driver is faced with a significant deterioration of internal and cognitive performance.

Then there’s high-speed braking and cornering, which can cause drivers to experience 6G’s of force, six times their body weight, making it difficult to maintain a position in the driver’s seat.

“In the high-speed corners you can’t even breathe,” said Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas. ‘It feels like your body wants to squeeze itself out. We have a supportive seat and that helps, but you still need a strong core, strong glutes to keep the whole package together.

“You need a strong upper body and neck because if you want to have good vision, you have to be able to keep your head straight.”

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton has previously said he couldn’t even hold his head up in the middle of his first day driving an F1 car, such was the pressure placed on his neck muscles. To develop the required strength, he performed neck exercises with a 22 lb (10 kg) weight strapped to his helmet. It was clearly worth it.

To see how strong my neck muscles are, they gave me a test in which I had to press my head against a foam-padded device and measured the force I could impart.

Unfortunately, the power that I could weakly muster from my neck was about four times less than that of an elite driver.

To further replicate the feeling of the G-force, I was strapped into a device best described as a medieval torture device. Then one of the sports scientists pulled the strings attached to my head to create 2G of force, about what you experience on some roller coaster rides. Piece of cake. Cheer up guys!

But with only 3G I was starting to tense every muscle in my neck to keep from being thrown across the room! And 3.5G turned out to be a step too far, and like a stubborn dog being led on a leash by its owner, I had to give in with my tail firmly between my legs.

Even with sitting and chatting between exercises, the fatigue of the body and mind was setting in. My results on a cognitive assessment reflected this.

Before the physical tests began, when I arrived fresh and rested at Silverstone, I was put through a simple reaction test, an easy game based on colours. My reactions were sharp and I made no mistakes.

But after enduring all the brainiacs they had to throw at me, my reaction times dropped marginally, and more importantly, I made two mistakes. Trivial when you’re gaming on a laptop, but potentially fatal when you’re racing down a track.

Such lapses in concentration could be the difference between hitting the apex of a corner or not. Other times it could be the reason why drivers end up with the front end of their car wedged into the tire wall and feeling the effects of a 51-G crash, as experienced by Max Verstappen during the 2021 British Grand Prix. .

With that shuddering thought, I cautiously limped out of the evidence room and headed for a much-needed shower and bed with a newfound sense of admiration for those on the grid.

Perhaps F1 is best enjoyed from the comfort of your sofa after all.

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