Why The Average Human Couldn't Drive An F1 Car

So in order to be a great Formula 1 driver,

you need to have the cognitive capabilities

of a chess grandmaster,

the strength, stamina, and reactions of a fighter,

and then you also have to have the endurance

of a marathon runner.

[Narrator] It's these unique set of skills

that would make it pretty much impossible

for an average human to drive an F1 car.

[grungy rock music]

My name is Clayton Green,

and I used to be F1 performance coach to Sir Lewis Hamilton

back in the 2010 season.

Here's a sketch of the Silverstone Circuit

that I put together.

Silverstone is a particularly unique Formula 1 Grand Prix.

It's extremely prestigious.

It's one that the drivers find distinctly challenging.

It's a wonderful blend of high-speed corners

and heavy braking zones,

and it thoroughly entertains both the crowd

and the drivers when they're racing.

[tense electronic music]

[engine revving]

[engine roaring]

So Formula 1 drivers

looking to get the quickest and best launch

that they possibly can at the start of the race,

the average reaction time for an F1 driver

is normally around 200 milliseconds.

[Narrator] Sprinters like Usain Bolt

are only a fraction quicker,

launching into a sprint

roughly 160 milliseconds after the starting pistol.

But your typical human being, like you and me,

we tend to be more around 500 to 600 milliseconds.

[Narrator] F1 cars are so fast

that just a 200-millisecond head-start

gives a driver a 10-meter lead.

Mental composure and quick reflexes

are essential for avoiding horrific crashes,

which are all too easy in Silverstone's Hamilton Straight,

where drivers go full pelt before the first turn.

This is the point one driver was hurled upside down

over the safety barriers last year

when another car swerved towards him from the left.

These are the kind of collisions

you're constantly exposed to throughout Silverstone.

And to avoid this,

F1 drivers train up their reflexes by exercises like this,

where they tap off as many lights as possible in 30 seconds.

An F1 driver's the best in the world at this exercise.

The current world record

is held by British driver Jenson Button,

who was going so fast,

he was averaging two lights per second.

[equipment creaking]

[suspenseful music]

Now, as our lap progresses,

one of the bits that drivers most enjoy

are the high-speed corners.

And around Silverstone,

we're looking at areas such as Maggotts and Becketts,

where you're carrying immense speed,

probably going at the full speed of the car

but doing still some small

but dramatic changes in direction.

Traditionally, most of the Formula 1 circuits

tend to go around in a clockwise direction.

If you're turning to the right,

it means that the G-force is gonna want to take your head

off to the left.

You have a force of the equivalent of like 40 kilos

hitting you in the back of the head,

that literally wants to take your head

clean off your shoulders,

and you've got to resist that.

[Narrator] This kind of force would make it impossible

for the average person to support their own head,

causing them to lose sight of the track ahead

and inevitably crash.

Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso

both have neck sizes of 18 inches.

That's compared to 15 inches for the average man.

And this kind of neck strength prevents serious injury.

The pair had a near-fatal crash last year

in the first lap of the Belgium Grand Prix,

with Lewis Hamilton's car

experiencing an immense 45 G of force.

Hamilton's neck would've been hurled

in several unpredictable directions as his car flipped.

This is the kind of collision

that would give the average person at best severe whiplash

and at worst a fatal break.

And it's comparable,

really, only to things like fighter jets and fighter pilots

and the kind of extreme maneuvers

that they would have to pull in their planes.

Now, this is an example of a neck harness.

It's worn like so.

You would have someone literally pulling a force

against the driver's head,

and they have to tense up

to stop their head from being moved.

So the neck musculature that the neck training

is gonna work on for the F1 driver,

which are gonna stop the head

from being pulled forwards or sideways,

sternocleidomastoid, the trapezius muscle.

And they're gonna really have to be very strong

and very adaptive to generate these forces quickly

and change.

[suspenseful electronic music]

[Narrator] Braking a normal car

requires an easy right or left tap of the car,

but F1 cars are another ballgame.

Stopping a Formula 1 car requires you

to stamp really hard on the brake pedal

and then just bleed the pressure off gradually.

[Narrator] The extreme weight of the G-force

means you're essentially pushing against 100 kilograms,

or 220 pounds, again and again.

Imagine only using one leg

to push up the weight of a baby elephant hundreds of times

over the course of 90 minutes.

You'd be using all the muscles in your quadriceps,

in your hamstrings at the back of the thigh,

your glutes, and also your calf muscles as well.

[Narrator] Without leg strength,

you'd simply be unable to brake the car,

flying off the track and over the safety barriers

at the first sharp turn on the Silverstone Circuit.

[suspenseful music] [engine humming]

There'll come a point

at least once in the race, possibly twice,

and we need to change the tires,

coming into the pit lane.

[Narrator] And how the drivers

pick up the fact they need to change tires,

they use their inner ear balance, or vestibular function,

to sense when their tires have lost grip.

You might rely on your inner ear balance

to sense when you're going up or down on a lift,

for example.

Younger drivers, like Lando Norris,

who practice on eSports steering wheels,

aren't as in tune with this

as older drivers like Lewis Hamilton.

Drivers such as Lewis Hamilton are particularly good

at being able to pick up on those cues,

and they'll be able to take you

'round that in-lap as quickly as possible

and get you into your pit stop,

even with pretty much zero grip left on those tires.

[Narrator] Without being able to sense the loss

of your tire grip,

each lap becomes increasingly uncontrolled and dangerous.

So the chances of your car swerving out of control

and crashing before you even got to the pit stop

are probably very high.

[upbeat electronic music]

As we get into the last quarter of the race,

what starts to get you will be the temperature

as it builds up in the body

and the muscular and mental fatigue.

A Formula 1 cockpit is quite a unique environment.

The track temperature could easily be 50 degrees Celsius.

The tires, they tend to run at 100 degrees Celsius.

The front brakes are running at 1,000 degrees Celsius.

You've sweated so much at this point in time.

You could easily have lost 3 to 5% of your body weight.

Any losses of even 2% will start to have an impact

on reaction times, decision-making.

Even those slight differences

will make a big difference to your overall lap time

and how you finish the race.

This is an example of one overall that a driver might wear.

[Narrator] The material is fireproof-

so, very thick and hot.

In a cockpit that can reach up to 60 degrees,

they need the cardio of an elite marathon runner

to regulate their temperature.

They need to have a really well-conditioned

cardiovascular system,

'cause their heart rate

could easily be running at 170, 180 beats per minute

for the entirety of a race.

That would be around about,

probably about 80%

of most people's kind of maximum heart rate.

Your elite marathon runners

would be sustaining that kind of intensity

for a two-hour marathon.

[Narrator] Being light and lean

is essential for regulating heat.

The average driver is less than 70 kilos, or 150 pounds,

and has less than 12% body fat.

A person weighing 90 kilos, or 200 pounds,

with 20% body fat

would struggle to deal with these harsh temperatures,

losing focus and reaction speed in these final laps,

ultimately making a controlled finish impossible.

[engine revving]

And it's a driver's physical

and mental resilience to these pressures

that ultimately decides the winner.

[car whizzing] [thrilling music]

So still see yourself in an F1 car?

[engine revving]

You might have a bit of work to do first.

[engine roaring] [suspenseful electronic music]