Like just about every car nut in the country, I found myself perched in front of the television for the Australian Formula One Grand Prix of a couple of weeks ago. I have to admit to being a bit of an on-again, off-again fan of F1. A lot of the races are tedious exercises in carefully planned pit stops, rather than the teeth-gritting, wheel-to-wheel racing we all imagine it should be like. Every time a team introduces a new bit of technology that sounds interesting, it gets banned. The driving stars are a worryingly alike bunch of po-faced robots, personalities carefully hidden behind wooden PR performances. We are spoon-fed carefully staged "media events" and see very little evidence of the real passion, the engineering and the dedication that must drive this spectacle.
So in Melbourne this year, the parade of young unlined drivers' faces unsullied by sagging jowls greeted us again; their thick necks and wiry bodies carefully swathed in form-fitting driving suits. I was reminded of watching the races during last season, where the physical sameness of the drivers interested me somewhat more than Ferrari's first championship in too long.
Watching some of the late night broadcasts last year I found myself fascinated by the seemingly passionless young automatons stretching the limit of tyre grip and their own endurance. While the precisely calculated pit stop strategies held a certain amount of technical interest, the complete lack of a chubby F1 driver, even in the slowest car, was decidedly strange. In direct comparison, I then lay sprawled on the couch surrounded by empties with dorito crumbs on my shirt, belly flopping over my waistband. The only limits being tested were my tolerance for beer, the precisely calculated timing of wee breaks, and the threatening of the integrity of the stitching of my Autospeed T-shirt with that gut.
So why are all the drivers so fit looking? It's easy to understand the trained monkey physiques of 500cc motorcycle racers (not much room for a beer gut on a 500cc bike is there, and they take a lot of physical manhandling to get around a circuit). But, theoretically, an F1 car has a minimum weight, so a butterball like Nigel Mansell could still be accommodated. Better for weight distribution if he has a fat bum than a fat head, but you get the idea.
F1 drivers are, of course, mostly young (which probably accounts for some of their appearance). However, when interviewed, they all admit to doing an unholy amount of physical exercise. Michael Schumacher was quoted as doing 150 push-ups a day along with hours of cycling, running or swimming. For somebody whose job seems like sitting back and getting shoved around by a 600 horse power V10 engine, he seems to work-out an awful lot.
But there are some very good reasons why F1 drivers train like long distance running athletes - the stresses on their cardiovascular systems (that's heart'n'lungs to you) are broadly similar to such an athlete when competing. Both need to be able to maximise the amount of oxygen they can process, and minimise the amount their heart works. It's not that different to an internal combustion engine: The more oxygen and fuel you can use for each breath, the more efficient you're going to be. This leads to endurance - the ability to perform at high levels for a relatively long period of time. A typical head with helmet weighs about six kilograms, and five times that on some of the corners. That accounts for those tree trunk necks (they even have special exercise machines just for lateral neck resistance training). They also spend a lot of time working on their arm strength - those big tyres need plenty of heft to change direction.
An F1 driver's heart rate can stay between 150-200 beats per minute for an entire race. For most of us, 200 beats a minute would probably mean serious heart damage. Michael Schumacher's resting heart rate is somewhere around 40 beats per minute. That's less than one a second - can you say the same? Try this simple exercise: count the beats in 15 seconds and multiply it by four. Mine is 60 and that's after a constant program of cardiovascular exercise over the last 5 months. (As you'll hear in more detail on a moment, I'm a slob no longer!) Schumacher is practically hibernating - he's so efficient at pushing oxygen around his body he doesn't have to work anywhere near as hard as I do just to sit around. He has a personal trainer and trains around 3 hours a day to get that heart rate though. He also shares a similar diet to the other drivers - minimal intake of energy as fat (too easy to store, too hard to process apparently). Little wonder they all look like coiled steel springs.
So why was I such a slob? When did this happen? OK, I spent much of the past eight years existing on a diet of rich food, corn chips and beer. The process of slobbification was fairly gradual, even then. I gave up bicycle riding when I got my drivers license. Work and family responsibilities managed to take a chunk out of the little organised sport I was involved in. Still, there is nothing and nobody to blame other than my own sheer laziness. That's not to say I hadn't had the occasional crack at gym membership, it just usually resulted in an initial enthusiasm being blunted by a distinct lack of results. Obviously, Ferrari won't be ringing me up as second stringer to Schumacher. I'd run out of breath before the lap was over, and I'd have little strength to steer the car effectively, let alone race with it.
It isn't hard to become physically exerted even when driving a road car, if you're trying hard enough. While I can't say that this was a primary motivation for the latest round of exercise madness in the Rubie household, it was certainly a factor - I can't say that I enjoyed sweating and puffing while trying to throw a car around my favourite roads. Getting poked in the soft underbelly by your giggling family is embarrassing enough. Last September I was back in the gym and not enjoying it, again. Dorito's became a no-no (along with hordes of other delicious but fat-laden goodies). Thankfully by December the exercise program was so much a part of my routine I started to feel compelled to do it, rather than reluctantly dragging my feet to the various tortures of treadmills and stair climbers.
I'm lighter, fitter, more informed - and much more determined to continue.
In the end, it has improved my driving (much easier to concentrate if you're not tired from exertion) and the extra leverage available from weight training is pretty handy in hairpins, especially when your favourite mount has fat tyres and no power steering. So while you and I mightn't be able to afford F1 technology for our cars, it's easier to incorporate F1-inspired fitness into our driving. It's as simple as dragging on your sneakers and jogging down the road, regularly, and watching what you eat. It's advice I really wish I'd been given much sooner, as the longer you leave it, the harder it is to pick up again.
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