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Amid the rigours of the Formula One season, The Independent visited the Porsche Human Performance Centre at Silverstone for an F1 medical – or as it was subequently known, a reality check
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The Independent takes part in a neck strength test at the Porsche Human Performance Centre at Silverstone
A heatwave and red weather warnings in the UK? Scrutiny on this season’s regulations amid the heavy load bouncing and porpoising is putting on the health and fitness of Formula One drivers? Whilst an analysis from afar is often the preferred method of choice in this profession, sometimes there really is only one thing for it. In the words of Napoleon: if you want something done properly, do it yourself.
For many, the elite level of professional sport is measurable from experience. Everyone has kicked a football, hit a tennis ball and ran around a track in their time, albeit some more passionately than others. But what about motor racing? While go-karting remains popular, how is it possible to measure the speed, reaction, stamina and strength of an F1 driver among an exclusive club of 20 at the pinnacle of motorsport?
Fortunately, you’d need not wonder any longer, as The Independent visited the Porsche Human Performance Centre at Silverstone for, effectively, an F1 medical. Or as it was subsequently known, with dreams of starring on circuits worldwide brutally crushed, a reality check.
Welcomed inside by lead sports scientist Jack Wilson, a series of tests awaited downstairs in the gym designed to examine the primary instincts of a racing driver. Among them, a VO2 max test on a treadmill, G force stimulation on the neck via a harness device, cardio exercise in a heat chamber and the Batak Pro reaction wall, not dissimilar to the flashing lights game seen in arcades up and down the country.
Wilson, who has worked with athletes in elite motorsport, football, rugby union and endurance sports, emphasised what the key features to look out for were.
“For muscle mass for example, we would want it as high as possible for your average Joe,” he explains. “But in Formula One, muscle mass is weight – you don’t see too many bodybuilders! They need to be strong enough to cope with the sheer demands of the sport but light enough that they can keep the car at an appropriate weight.
“The demands of any elite athlete are abnormal – strong, fast, lean. Yet drivers need to be muscular but not too heavy. Lean but not too lean. It’s all about caveating their training, nutrition, recovery, even travel hygiene so they’re balancing that tightrope appropriately.”
But first, the opening delivery no journalist wants; a measurement of body composition which, in actual fact, was oddly reassuring. “Plum in the middle, normal” was the conclusion, at which point the personal consensus was… happy days! Take the spreadsheet and be on my way!
Yet a score of 15.3 per cent was above the upper-average for F1 drivers of 12 per cent. This would become a common theme under the glare of sympathetic sports scientists throughout the day: results that were distinctly average for Joe Bloggs, but outside the threshold for Formula One drivers amid the unusual requirements needed for elite sportspeople.
During the VO2 max test..
And after the VO2 max test!
Next was the Batak wall and, as something of a rackets sport junkie, reaction speed and hand-eye coordination would be right up my street. Or so I thought. A score of 88 in 60 seconds was far lower than the F1 drivers’ average of 120, the equivalent of a lightning two lights a second.
Confidence severely knocked, we moved on to the neck strength assessment, required in order to withstand the forces placed upon a driver by the downforce of the car in a test often seen in the build-up to a season on the Instagram feed of those in the cockpit. For me, with an F1 standard of 50 kgf (kilogram-force) for flexion, coming in at a measly 11.4 kgf was no surprise at all amid a G-force load of just 3G applied. For comparison, Lewis Hamilton amid porpoising in Azerbaijan was experiencing upwards of 10G throughout the 90-minute race.
Onto the treadmill for the VO2 max test, with the speed increasing every minute until exhaustion, to a maximum of 10 minutes for the F1-driver average. Sprinting as if my life depended on it, a nine-minute torture cleaned me out, with the 37C heat chamber – akin to temperatures and humidity in race locations such as Baku and Singapore – which followed making it all too apparent of the extreme conditions Formula One drivers have to operate in.
But how much attention is actually paid to these test results when teams are weighing up young talent?
“For those from under-privileged and poorer backgrounds this is an obvious area where they can stand out,” Wilson says.
“Teams at F3, F4 level which have a seat often send their drivers to us so they have one factor which then influences the decision. But of course they’re also looking at their budget, skill in the car and then fitness would come after that but fitness can be a determinant of the skill – some drivers are handicapped by their lack of fitness out on the track compared to their performance in the simulator, for example.”
So all in all, a sobering afternoon in Northamptonshire, as the multifaceted fitness of F1 drivers is laid bare with my own shortcomings. As with all elite sportspeople – but perhaps overlooked in motor racing – the mesmeric fitness and skill levels are indeed what makes them the stars of the show. And, personally, the concluding realisation? Stick to the day job, methinks.
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The Independent takes part in a neck strength test at the Porsche Human Performance Centre at Silverstone
During the VO2 max test..
And after the VO2 max test!
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