Staying fit and in shape can be difficult for anyone. This is made even more difficult when your job involves travelling around the world (crossing different time zones, cuisines and cultures) for 24 weeks a year. That's the basic challenge that every Formula 1 driver faces.
And then there are the races themselves, all of them physically demanding, but some more so than others. Take Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix, where the punishing heat and humidity will push competitors to their physical limits.
Drivers' bodies must perform a tricky balancing act: they must be strong enough to withstand gravitational forces of up to about 6 G, but at the same time light enough not to become an additional drag on the car. And that balancing act must be performed over the course of an entire F1 season lasting more than nine months.
During a typical Grand Prix, drivers can lose between 2 and 3 kilograms (4.4 and 6.6 pounds) through sweat alone, depending on their weight and height, and up to 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) in Singapore for the tallest drivers. That's about 3% to 4% of their body weight.
With so much emphasis on riders' weight, one of the biggest difficulties is maintaining muscle mass throughout the season. How do you do it?
“Throughout the season you take the little opportunities to push yourself a little bit harder,” George Russell's coach Aleix Casanovas told ESPN. “So it's about going back to previous years. When there's an easier race weekend, you push yourself a little bit harder thinking about the future.”
For example, he says, from the season opener at the Bahrain Grand Prix to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the latter is much hotter and more physically demanding, so drivers can push themselves harder in training ahead of the first race of the season. Monza is similar. “There aren’t as many corners, a lot of straights, so you can actually push yourself a bit harder that week. Thinking ahead and a race week like Singapore, which you know is going to be intense, you need to cut back on exercise, so you’ll train a bit less then.”
Every driver is different, but taller ones like Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon, both 6ft 1in (1.86m), tend to have a harder time maintaining the sweet spot compared to shorter ones like Yuki Tsunoda, who is 5ft 6in (1.67m). Next year, the minimum weight for drivers will rise from 80kg (176lb) to 82kg (181lb), which should help the overall health of taller drivers and help them avoid illness.
Most drivers will train intensively in pre-season, improving their strength and fitness to start off in the best possible shape, and then look for opportunities to push themselves again throughout the season, depending on the upcoming race. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc said there are three key moments in training.
“There is pre-season, when you see the biggest improvement because that's when we have the most time to train,” he said. “During the season, it's all about maintaining the fitness level and the training is less intense and it's about maintaining strength. And then there's the break in August, when it's good to take a complete break and not train any more and slow down, and then keep it up until the end of the season, when I can push myself in the gym again.”
If you tend to smuggle exercise equipment in your luggage and choose hotels for their gym facilities to keep fit while you're away, you might relate. Considering F1 is a travelling circus, you work with what you've got.
Casanovas has been working at Russell for eight years, so the hotels are familiar to him. However, if there is a new hotel, he says, “I call them ahead of time and ask them to send me pictures of the equipment they have, but I always travel with some equipment. There are some things that we use all over the world.”
He is referring to a dynamometer, which is a device that measures strength and is used to strengthen the legs, neck and arms, but not resistance bands, which he says do not provide a strong enough stimulus to create strength-enhancing tension. While workouts may vary from week to week depending on the demands of the rider, a typical grand prix weekend has a familiar cadence.
“Starting on Thursday, we can do some cardiorespiratory training and, depending on the area of the world we are in, sometimes we do some high-intensity but low-volume strength training,” says Casanovas. That means “a few reps of neck training at high intensity but with a lot of reps; that makes it so there is not much fatigue and, in addition, it is isometric, so there is even less fatigue. Depending on the race, you will always do some cardiorespiratory and strength training, but… you will prioritize one or the other.”
Naturally, fatigue, jet lag and emotional well-being also come into play, and there are many adjustments depending on how drivers feel.
“You have to plan smartly, but you also have to adapt,” says Casanovas. “If a race weekend doesn't go well, it's very difficult for a driver to give it their all on Tuesday, just mentally. Emotionally, you're not there, but sleep can also be a factor, and there are a million factors that play a role.”
“When you cross about six hours west (like in the US), we know it takes four or five days to get back to normal strength levels, and we've seen that in a lot of sports. For those types of races, there's more of a priority on cardiorespiratory training, so you feel better and it's easier, and you don't want to be hitting a personal record in neck strength when you go to the US.”
The 24 races on the calendar alone can be enough training.
“You try to prepare as best as you can before the season starts, because you know you’re going to have to fight jet lag and do a lot of racing,” said Stake F1’s Zhou Guanyu. “As for the physical aspect, I think you get to a point where you’re fit enough to race. You race a lot of races every weekend and you’re constantly sitting in your seat, that actually makes life a lot easier because the moment you get in the car and the season starts, everything becomes very consistent until the summer break.”
The three-week summer vacation is not a complete break, as it is possible to lose fitness and, more importantly, to lose adaptation to heat exposure. Casanovas says: “In six days, you already lose a lot (fitness). You also lose a lot of adaptation to heat, which is very important for us: about 2.5% every day… when you are not exposed to heat.”
In Singapore, that heat adaptation is crucial, as is being in the cockpit for two hours well fed and hydrated and with a stable core temperature.
But it's not all bad. Although the drivers' diet is carefully planned (Casanovas tells the Mercedes chefs what's on the menu for Russell and they prepare it), for Singapore they will eat more than usual to build up energy in the days leading up to it.
Carbohydrates are the priority for energy, a whopping 5 to 6 g per kilo of body weight (about 0.08 to 0.1 ounces per pound), plus protein, macronutrients, and fat for recovery.
“Eating so many carbs isn't easy,” Casanovas says, “so don't be surprised if you see an athlete before a game or race eating dessert because they need to replenish their carbohydrate stores.”
