Why was the Qatar Grand Prix so physically challenging for the drivers?
We have rarely seen drivers as physically affected at the end of a Grand Prix as in Qatar. Several elements explain why the drivers had to push their limits.
A driver who abandons because he is physically incapable of driving. Three drivers who head straight for the ambulance and medical center at the end of the race. Nearly all the drivers sit down at the end of the race. The images of the drivers at the end of the Qatar Grand Prix will go down in the annals of Formula 1.
Brief look back. The driver who was forced to retire due to physical failure is Logan Sargeant. The American had been ill all week. The intensity of heat and humidity simply drained him of his strength and he was completely dehydrated. But he was not the only one to end up in this state since his teammate, Alex Albon, also had to make a trip to the medical center to receive fluids. Simply looking at the images of Lance Stroll at the end of the race, having all the difficulties in the world to get out of his cockpit, and then staggering toward the ambulance makes you realize that the Canadian too had pushed himself to his limits. In front of the cameras, he then admitted that he was losing consciousness in the fast curves during the last 20-25 laps because of the Gs he had to face!
As for Esteban Ocon, he confessed on his radio at the checkered flag that he had vomited in his helmet after only 15 laps. He then stated after the race: « What a tough and physically demanding race! (…) The conditions were extremely difficult at the wheel and I didn’t feel especially well in the first half of the race. I was able to pull myself together and focus on my mission. »
In the end, the situation was summarized by Charles Leclerc on the Canal+ microphone: « It’s not a question of physical condition because we’re not exhausted muscularly. It’s that we can’t hydrate properly, the heat was super crazy, it was really very complicated. »
Four essential factors
The track conditions were indeed extreme (despite the nighttime scheduling to try and reduce the temperature), with a combination of heat (35°C in the air but over 50°C in the cockpits) but also of humidity (80%). This equates to staying in a sauna fully clothed for two hours. Except that with racing suits, sweat does not evaporate and the body is therefore unable to cool down, hence the symptoms of exposure to extreme temperature presented by the drivers. This mirrors the situation that was experienced on the streets of Singapore last month.
But a big difference between the Singapore track and the Losail one is that the latter has many fast turns, with high G forces while Singapore is a succession of accelerations and brakes. This requires a huge amount of concentration but is less physically demanding.
The last key element is the regulation imposed only a few hours before the start of the race: the obligation to make relay stops of a maximum of 18 laps and therefore to make at least three stops. If this measure was taken because Pirelli’s tyres were unable to withstand the shock of the kerbs, it had the consequence that the drivers were not forced to slow down their pace in the race but could and had to attack during the entire race, which is no longer the case on most of the races.
A simple glance at the timesheet allows us to understand just how much the drivers were forced to attack during the 57 laps: Max Verstappen’s best lap time is only six tenths of a second off his pole position time (1:24.319 vs 1:23.778). In Suzuka, the gap was over five seconds (1:34.183 vs 1:28.877)! Such a pace obviously has an impact on energy expenditure and sweat levels for the drivers in their suits.
So it is indeed the combination of these four essential factors (temperature, humidity, G forces and qualification pace) that have led the drivers to push their physical limits even though they are athletes at a very high level. This is an issue that has already been experimented with in other categories of motor sports. For example, for the safety of the pilots, air conditioning is now mandatory in the cockpits of all cars at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and on all races of the WEC.
The two drivers now have two weeks to physically recover before tackling a trio of races as only F1 can do: Austin, Mexico, Brazil, before following up with Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi a week apart!
