Is motorsport even a real sport? It’s a question most die-hard racing fans dread answering.
Anyone who has driven a modern road car knows it’s a fairly straightforward thing on the streets, so what difference is there in a race car on a track?
In the pursuit of tenths, hundredths, and thousandths of a second, there are no creature comforts in a race car.
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Forget power steering, air conditioning, and brake boosters. There’s nothing on a race car that unnecessarily adds weight.
IndyCar is about as raw as it gets, and the physique of most drivers is evidence of that.
Upper body strength is a must. Drivers are subject to upwards of 5G through corners for hours on end.
That’s five times a driver’s body weight, which means there’s plenty of neck training to keep their head stable.
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It might come as a surprise then that Formula 1 cars have power steering. IndyCar, however, does not.
Without it, drivers must have strong arms, shoulders, and core to control the wheel.
A strong neck is especially important in a crash too, to avoid whiplash or other injuries.
Every contemporary road car nowadays has a brake booster, which effectively multiplies the amount of force the driver applies from the pedal to the brakes.
Most top-flight race cars don’t have that. Exactly how much pressure they put through the pedal is how much is transferred to the brakes.
Cardiovascular fitness is a must, too. Drivers sweat kilograms of water in each race as the cockpit swelters to sauna-like temperatures.
Sting Ray Robb is among the new crop of IndyCar drivers on the grid this year feeling the physical strain.
He’s already had a taste of his new single-seater, which is powered by a turbocharged, 3.0-litre, V8 engine making 700bhp.
“I think the physical fitness side is underestimated in a lot of senses because people think, ‘I can drive a car. I drive it down the freeway all the time’. Well, you’re not doing it with four or five G’s on your neck with no power steering and it’s 120 degrees (48 degrees celsius) in the car and you’ve got 26 other guys that are trying to rip you off the racetrack,” said Robb.
“But we need to be able to perform in the car without thinking, and even if you are capable of turning the wheel and holding your head upright, you have to do it with a subconscious ability. So you have to build up that muscle.
“If I told you right now; I need you to go squat 700 pounds (317 kilograms), you’d probably have to think about it a little bit, even if you can do it. We need to do all of that without thinking about it. It needs to be subconscious. It needs to be natural, second nature. Because if you’re thinking about it, you’re already behind.”
There is some equipment that helps a driver stay comfortable.
Seats are moulded to the driver’s body to keep them snug and stop them from rolling around.
A ‘cool suit’ which pumps cold water through a vest worn under race overalls takes the edge off the searing cockpit temperatures.
Ultimately, drivers have to be able to battle physical and mental fatigue to remain competitive for the hours that they are on track.
“There are too many things that are happening in the car for us to be thinking about ‘how do I hold my head upright’,” Robb explained.
“That’s why drivers have to be very comfortable. That’s why we have custom-fit race seats. That’s why we have forced air intake. That’s why we have cool suits. That’s why we have water.
“If you didn’t have those things – that’s not to say that they’re fool proof – but you get what’s called brain fade, or at least that’s what I call it, where you get deep into a race and a driver will make a mistake because they get brain fade from the physical fatigue.
“We talk about runners, when they get their runners high and they hit that wall and they have to break through it, and if they don’t break through that wall, they can’t perform at a high level, and that wall that they’re breaking through is what we’re trying to avoid because a runner’s high is them zoning out. They’re just falling into a rhythm.
“But in a race car, there are so many variables that are changing lap to lap, corner to corner, that if you fall into a rhythm, you’re going to hit the wall. You have to be on your toes 110 per cent of the time.”
The season gets underway with its first race on March 6 on the bumpy streets of St Petersburg.
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