F1: Flyaway Races Pressure for Drivers

When you are watching F1 drivers flying from country to country to attend races, you might envy them greatly, for you think that the racers just have so many opportunities for free travel. However, do the drivers enjoy this kind of travel?

The races taken place in various countries are called flyaway races. Every year, F1 will be held in about 20 countries, which means that the drivers have to fly from country to country throughout the year to enter the race. Indeed, this provides them a golden opportunity to sightsee. Nevertheless, F1 sport is time and energy consuming, which hinders drivers to have fun in their relaxed time. Above all, due to flyaway races, the drivers all suffer severely from jetlag and irregular schedule.

“It’s not actually the race itself that stresses us, but the traveling around without a proper schedule,” said Jarno Trulli, a racer at the former team Lotus.

In addition to this, some grand prix held in Asian countries, such as Singapore, began to race at 8 p.m., while in Europe it is usually at 2 p.m. Since most drivers are from Europe, this can be quite a challenge for them. Nonetheless, they have already come up with an effective method.

“The only thing you need to do is to not shift your sleeping hours: You stay on European hours, you go to bed at around 4 a.m. and you wake up at around 1 p.m.,” said Pedro de la Rosa, a former F1 driver.

Also, he added that drivers should make sure that there was no light in the room and they should tell the hotel people not to do housekeeping in their rooms early.

Apart from time-zone difference, the race in Singapore, with intolerable heat and humidity, demands the racers to drive at night on the street circuits, which requires drivers to have intense concentration or they could just crash into a wall.

Thus, the former Renault team doctor Ricardo Ceccarelli said: “If you put it all together, it is the most difficult cocktail. It’s like Monaco for the concentration, it’s like Malaysia for the heat and humidity, and then it is at night, so it is even more difficult.”

And doctor Ceccarelli said that he would provide his drivers with light sleeping pills to make them feel better. Also, he encouraged the drivers to do some exercise in the heat and humidity a few days in advance of the competition.

Besides, Pedro de la Rosa talked about his experience of dealing with flyaway races. He said that he would arrive in advance but he would not overdo it as well. For example, he would normally arrive in Singapore on a Tuesday, and by Friday he would have already adjusted to the environment.