[Racer Duck]

For anyone who still doubts that race car drivers are athletes, perhaps they should box a few rounds with Wade Cunningham, row against Scott Dixon, run a triathlon with Tony Kanaan or go on a bicycle ride with Ed Carpenter.



"When you get to the level that IndyCar Series drivers are, you are looking for every competitive edge that you can find," said PitFit Training president Jim Leo, who has been training Indy-car racing drivers since 1994. "The teams spend vast amount of resources on the car, the engines, the tires and wind tunnel testing. These teams have done everything they can possibly do with the mechanical machine. The next thing you turn to is how to improve the human performance aspect."

Leo has seen the correlation of cardiovascular conditioning to success on the racetrack.

"In the days long ago, drivers could just get in the car and just drive the car and their pure driving skill would compensate for a lack of physical fitness," Leo said. "I think that's how it was in the 1960s and 1970s. When you started to see drivers see the money increase, the resources increase and the technology expand, you started to see this influx of Formula One drivers come over in the mid- to late-1990s and having success. Guys like Mark Blundell and Alex Zanardi and Mauricio Gugelmin and Gil de Ferran. These guys came over and part of their everyday routine was a stringent physical fitness program."



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[Racer Duck]

Should Tony Stewart and a few others take special notice? Can you imagine seeing a race where every driver is toned to perfection? No more of those post race interviews where the driver is gasping for breath and too fatigued to stand up.

[DOF_power]

Even in the early 1980s the GP drivers weren't that fit.
It was Ayrton Senna who introduced fitness and diet to F1 and Michael Schumacher who took it to the next level(s).
Before that, with rise of downforce in the late 70s witch lead to increases in cornering speeds and g-forces, drivers like Niki Lauda were saying that "cornering is an euphemism for rape", and all the drivers were happy that the
huge-downforce ground-effects cars were banned in 82/83.

[Racer Duck]

yeah, but every year they get faster and faster. every year the teams figure out how to squeeze a bit more downforce and bit more traction out of the cars. drivers are gonna have to keep up or they just won't last very long, there's too many good drivers waiting in the wings for their chance at the gold ring.

[DOF_power]

Originally Posted by Racer Duck

yeah, but every year they get faster and faster. every year the teams figure out how to squeeze a bit more downforce and bit more traction out of the cars. drivers are gonna have to keep up or they just won't last very long, there's too many good drivers waiting in the wings for their chance at the gold ring.

The performance levels and G-forces of those times 82/83 were indeed equaled and surpassed but this time, thanks to Senna and Schumacher, the drivers were ready, while others like Nigel Mansell had a quite undignified ending to their F1 career in 95 when he couldn't fit into the car.
There's no way to endure forces of 5G - 6G in cornering and/or braking without workout before races and also recovery sessions after races.