At many of the circuits on F1’s vast 24-race calendar, racing is only one part of a driver’s worries. At tracks like the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore, they also have to contend with the sheer humidity that engulfs them in the cockpit, and Ralf Schumacher has revealed how they prepare for it.
The Singapore Grand Prix is notorious for being one of the toughest stops on the F1 calendar, and it requires a relatively high degree of preparation from the F1 grid in order to endure 61 laps of racing on the streets of the Downtown Core.
Drivers can lose up to four kilograms of bodyweight during the race due to the extreme heat and humidity present. It’s one of the reasons why it became F1’s very first night race in 2008, with the cooler temperatures at night proving to be a necessary consideration.
The Qatar Grand Prix is another example of a race deemed one of the hardest due to the conditions at play. Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda called the 2023 Qatar GP the “toughest” of his F1 career, also stating that he genuinely wanted to get out of the car at some points during the Grand Prix.
READ MORE: Singapore Grand Prix: how to watch, UK timings and weather as McLaren target championship victory
Ralf Schumacher reveals the necessary training regimes to prepare for humid F1 races
Speaking on a recent episode of the Backstage Boxengasse podcast, Ralf Schumacher detailed the rigorous training regimes that F1 drivers have to go through in order to make sure they are at their peak performance during the harsh conditions.
Despite retiring the season before the Singapore Grand Prix was introduced to the calendar, Schumacher did take part in multiple Malaysian Grands Prix, which were also notorious for the humidity.
“For us, it was Malaysia, also very humid and warm,” Schumacher recalled. “We did go during the day. It was similar then. One must also drink a lot of water. I actually had a special function at the gym to heat up the entire gym.
“Of course not as hot as in the sauna, but in order to simulate that a bit as well. Of course, we had some other conditions too. I’m curious to see how Formula 1 looks this year.
“We did actually drive like a sprint race with the pit stops and everything, we were basically always going full speed. Last year, people were driving up to seven seconds slower, starting from the qualifying to the race.”
Temperatures in the cockpit can exceed 60 degrees Celsius, and George Russell experienced how bad it can get during the 2024 Singapore GP after Netflix captured him suffering from heatstroke symptoms in the aftermath of the race.
George Russell once spoke about his training routine for Singapore whilst he was at Williams
Russell is one of the drivers who has revealed their training regime for the 61-lap race in the past, with ESPN’s Laurence Edmondson recalling it in a recent episode of Unlapped.
“A lot of them do heat training in the weeks before Singapore, they just gradually build up the way they’re training,” the journalist said on the podcast. “Whether it be bringing a cycling machine into a sauna, whatever, there are various different things that they do.
“Whether it’s wearing lots of layers and turning the heat up in the factory gym. I remember George Russell talking about that when he was at Williams.
“All the staff, the regular staff, then came back and they’re like, ‘Why is our gym at 35 degrees and why is there a bunch of sweaty clothes in the corner?’
“Essentially, that was just George’s way of adapting his body to get to a point where he could deal with the 60-odd laps that it is in the heat in Singapore.”
Drivers have their work cut out for them next year, much to the dismay of F1 fans, due to the fact that the grid will take part in a Sprint race around the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
The move seems to be a bit of a strange one, given that the narrow streets of the Singapore track don’t offer many opportunities for close, wheel-to-wheel racing.