“Does someone have a wheelchair?” joked recently crowned 2023 F1 World Drivers Champion Max Verstappen as he walked into the podium cooldown room. In that room he was greeted by the McLaren driver pairing of Oscar Piastri—laying on the ground—and Lando Norris—seated and chugging a cold bottle of water. All three extremely fit athletes were soaked and seemed to have trouble catching their breath.
This weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix narrowly avoided disaster almost too many times to count. A combination of shitty Pirelli tires, sharp corner ‘pyramid’ curbs, and 100+ degree weather conspired to provide one of the most physically demanding Grands Prix of all time.
While F1 races have been held in extreme heat before—the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix holds the record at 108.5 degrees—this weekend’s mandatory 18-lap stint lengths meant drivers were running qualifying-level laps all race long. The lack of wind at Lusail meant drivers were dealing with hot stagnant air, and even hotter track temperatures.
During the race Aston Martin Fernando Alonso suffered burns on his right side as engine heat escaped into the cockpit, begging his team to dump water into his seat at the pitstop (an action not allowed in the Formula 1 rulebook). His teammate Lance Stroll revealed post-race that he was actively passing out while driving his 200-mile-per-hour projectile of carbon fiber and gasoline (below). Esteban Ocon threw up in his helmet. American driver Logan Sargeant was forced to retire his Williams after just over an hour of racing.
Williams and Sargeant were well down the order, far out of the points, when he retired. To their credit the team gave Logan the choice to retire, telling him there was no shame in pitting. Would they have said the same if he were sitting seventh, for example? I hope so, but my cynical heart won’t believe it. There is obviously a mental pressure put on these drivers to risk life and limb for money, with driver Esteban Ocon saying they’d rather die than retire early.
This is why rulebooks exist. The drivers and teams can’t be trusted to police themselves when it comes to heat exhaustion. This weekend proves that the FIA needs to implement some kind of driver monitoring telemetry. If drivers get too dehydrated, too hot, or get the blinky brain, pull them in. There is a non-zero chance that the driver, other drivers around them, or potentially corner workers and spectators could be involved in the resulting crash.
Nearly every driver on the grid called this one the most taxing of their career. Max Verstappen, who won the Grand Prix, said it was “in the top five”. While some of his fellow drivers said he must be lying, I suspect he might be telling the truth, which would mean he had enough speed in hand to just cruise for most of the race. Of the 19 drivers who lined up on the grid, Verstappen was the only driver who didn’t exceed track limits on any of his laps. While he’s usually tearing off into the distance at full chat, this race he finished just a handful of seconds ahead of his McLaren competition.
As mentioned in Elizabeth’s post on this subject, other series have stepped up to the plate and mandated cooler cockpit temperatures. It would be difficult for F1 to institute air conditioning in an open cockpit formula, but mandating driver cool suits, instituting driver hydration minimums, and red-flagging races for difficult conditions would go a long way toward making the world believe the series actually cares about its drivers and their safety. The series is only as safe as its most endangered driver, and the teams aren’t going to volunteer to add pounds of water to their cars if the series doesn’t require it.
This doesn’t just stand for F1 either. This should be the case across the board in all racing series around the world. Motorsport should always endeavor to do better. And I hope this kind of thing never happens again.