F1 drivers struggle in Qatari conditions: 'No exceptions'
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F1 News
- Sam Godber
Conditions for Formula 1 drivers at the Qatar Grand Prix. It was much talked about after the race, as several drivers shared experiences, after the GP, about how incredibly hot they were. Charles Leclerc, among others, called it the toughest race of his career.
Verstappen and Norris demolished
The three-time world champion, who also won the race in Qatar, speaking: "I just felt extremely destroyed. Today was tough for sure. It also depends a bit where you are on track, how much you have to push to the end of the race, and a lot of circumstances. Llike I said before, these kinds of temperatures are just too extreme, I think."
The man who finished third in Qatar, McLaren driver Lando Norris, also struggled in the Qatar heat. "Probably for the first time ever, I've drunk from my bottle during a race," the Englishman from Bristol explained. " I actually wanted my engineer to remind me to drink, normally I never even use the drinks bottle. Today was probably the first time I actually wanted it and I had it," the McLaren driver commented.
AlphaTauri drivers react after the race
AlphaTauri driver Liam Lawson has not been driving Formula 1 for very long, but he too does not have much doubt when asked if this was his toughest race ever. "II think honestly, probably yes, just because when you're struggling so much with the car, you're working overtime to try and make it work and extract everything out of it, and obviously when things are working really nicely, you can relax a bit more, but honestly the whole race was just tricky," Lawson told GPblog and others.
Lawson's teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, had a similar problem: "It was crazy, I just had to consistently open the visor to breathe actually because it's just too too hot. Obviously I don't want to open the visor because sand is also coming through the visor and I can feel sand is coming inside my eyes but if I close it, it's insane the amount of heat I feel," Tsunoda told GPblog and others .
Leclerc makes hefty statement
"This is the toughest race, I think, for every driver in Formula 1 of our careers, for everybody," Leclerc told GPblog . " No exception and I don't believe anyone that says it's not," he reinforces. "At one point, it's not even a physical preparation, it's just the dehydration is at such a level that your vision is so much worse, your heart rate is going to the stars and it's very difficult to control all of this. It was really, really difficult," Leclerc concludes.