Written by Karlha Contreras, Edited by Tarun Suresh
In the long history of motorsport, not only F1, fans have seen how a race can affect the drivers, but there are some specific moments that show people the kind of situations drivers are exposed to and let them realise how hard it is to practice the sport.
For example, when people think about Miami, Qatar, Singapore or Abu Dhabi F1 GPs, they usually remember the post-race pictures or interviews where drivers looked exhausted, covered in sweat and thirsty; everybody gets shocked about how the drivers end after these races and then, everybody talks about the villain… the Heat.
In normal situations, a human can tolerate a certain variation in the internal body temperature (about +/- 4 °C) before experiencing deficits in both physical and mental performance, and an ideal scenario is a balance between the external temperature and the internal temperature.
The human body can make this balance happen thanks to sweat and other ways, like the need to drink water.
But, in motorsports, it's difficult to find this balance. Why? The local temperature is not the only factor which plays a role here, the cockpit and the safety gear are to be factored in as well. The temperature in hot places like Singapore is +/- 30°C.
Inside the cockpit, the temperature can be +/- 50° C, so it's a micro-environment that further compromises heat loss and remains there for the duration of the race. If the car is an open cockpit like an F1 car or a closed cockpit car, like NASCAR, there is a chance drivers from different categories experiment with different temperature changes given by the heat and air flow during the race.
The safety gear is composed of fire-retardant long underwear and socks (like 4 layers of Nomex), a balaclava (or a kind of head sock, made of Nomex too ), fire-retardant racing boots, gloves and a full-face helmet; a piece of gear which stores the heat and makes the balance of temperature difficult because It limits the driver’s exposure to the environment, and exposure is necessary for heat exchange.
Researcher Edward Potkanowicz did some digging and found out that in the course of a 20-minute race, by about the 10th minute, the core body temperature of drivers had already risen halfway to their post-race core body temperature which was between 38 to 39 °C.
In the last few years, scientists have tried different ways to help drivers, like continuous drink systems, control drink systems or even new cooling gear, to prevent all the complications or “heat illnesses” like:
Dehydration
Vomit
Dizziness
Cognitive and performance deficits
Increase in heart rate
For now, drivers use hands-free drinks systems, vests with iced gel to cool the body or cooling clothes with tubes to dissipate the heat, and scientists improve them and test them. Still, sometimes these gears can be temporary and not useful while they drive, or they can fail, or even be forgotten by the team (remember the iconic: “Kimi you can’t have the drink”?).
So, this is a current problem, a problem that has persisted for a long time, one which needs to be resolved but who knows how much time will take to finally find proper a solution or the ultimate update.
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