Ben Edwards on the strain F1 is under
PANDEMIC F1 IS TAKING A HUGE TOLL ON PEOPLE
Triplets are exhausting, and Formula 1 has nurtured a bunch of them this year. Three weekends in a row create a huge demand; back in 2018 there was a backlash against the first tripleheader organised by Liberty, and a hope that it wouldn’t happen again.
Coronavirus reactivated the plan – an entirely logical decision, yet the consequences are still to be fully felt. According to insiders, even the first sequence of three revealed some tricky moments. Martin Poole is Human Performance Coach at Racing Point and saw the strains developing as early as the initial run of two races in Austria followed by the trip to Budapest.
“Even by Hungary it was tough,” Poole says. “For our crew, I think it was fortunate that the second triple-header had the two Silverstone races as everyone got to sleep in their own beds; that really helped and we got a couple of days off after each race. The load is more mental than physical; I was dealing with minor physical injuries and we were getting through it, but you could see the fatigue in the guys.”
Martin was impressed, however, at the level of fitness that lockdown had encouraged among team members. Once the season got under way, they were keen for him to push them further and to give them an outlet from all of the demands of working in such restricted ways.
“There was a lot of tension across the paddock as the season began,” Poole adds. “How was the travelling going to work, would crews get stuck somewhere, were we going to get ill? Being able to help our team focus on fitness goals and giving them something else to concentrate on outside their daily tasks did work really well.”
Martin is deeply embedded in Formula 1, having worked with eight of the current drivers on the grid and acted as Nico Hülkenberg’s physio and trainer between 2016-2019. When Hülkenberg got the call to take over from Sergio Pérez at the first Silverstone event, their partnership was rapidly rekindled.
“That was a big challenge,” Poole says. “I did more physio on Nico than I’d ever done before in those two weeks. At the British Grand Prix, he arrived so late it really was a whirlwind. On Friday he ran into the paddock, I was waiting there with all his stuff laid out, he literally got changed, went into the garage, did his jump-out test and then got strapped in and drove out for first practice!”
The two of them had kept in touch during lockdown and Nico maintained a good level of aerobic training. He was pretty much at his ideal weight which barely changed between the two Silverstone races. What did become an issue was the strain on his neck…
“Every year, pre-season training is more targeted and we arrive at winter testing in Barcelona in better shape than ever before, but on that first day in the car every driver is knackered,” Poole explains. “The British Grand Prix was a bit like Barcelona for Nico.”
As the weekend continued, neck strain became a limiting factor while the rapidly created new seat left Hülkenberg with two pressure points, one in his shoulder and the other in his leg which was referring into his gluteal muscles. As Nico pointed out on the radio during practice: “Mate, do you reckon I could have a quick breather? My right arse cheek is getting a bit numb.”
It was a full-on experience. During qualifying on the Saturday, Hülkenberg reported that the G-forces made his head feel as though he was being slapped in the face left and right and he was even struggling to see corner apexes in a couple of key areas.
Come Sunday, and an intense amount of preparation for the full race distance, suddenly it all turned to dust when the engine refused to fire up. As Martin told me, Nico was probably 99% disappointed and 1% relieved…
Yet just five days later, and with some slight modifications to the cockpit layout, Hülkenberg was completely in the groove – outqualifying team-mate Lance Stroll and completing a race distance 24 hours later to score valuable points for Racing Point. It was a Herculean effort, and much appreciated by the team. How was it possible?
“After that first Friday I did notice his neck wasn’t as pumped up or as muscular as it is every year but already one week later, because of muscle memory and increased blood flow, it was almost like his old neck again,” Poole says. “His sternocleidomastoid, the big muscle down the front which supports the neck, is big and thick. That muscle I could feel was back to normal.”
Nico is rightly proud of his ‘sterno’ and it found its strength very quickly in the crisis. Just as the many Formula 1 crews who have had to throw themselves back into the paddock in such a concentrated fashion have also coped admirably.
“I have been so impressed with the resilience of the team through all of this, and Nico’s efforts at Silverstone were just outstanding,” concludes Martin. “It has been a tough but inspirational time.”
It’s a lesson to us all that the body and mind can adjust quickly when required, but the load at times is painful. Let’s hope the remaining triple-headers don’t pile too much extra pressure on everyone working at their peak.
By the second Silverstone weekend Hülkenberg was on top of his game and managed to qualify a superb third behind only the two Mercedes drivers