planetf1.com

Anyone who follows F1 knows it takes an immense amount of Personal Fitness in order to make it through Grand Prix.

We know that all drivers are in great physical shape, but like anything in life some are more so than others.


So I ask you to please share your opinion to the following question: Of the current crop who do you think is the fittest F1 Driver and why?

Fittest

Personally I think Button is the Fittest Driver because of the amount of Triathlons he competes in.

Notable mentions:

Mark Webber -for the many marathons and charity sports events.
Glock - for his many bike trips which you can follow if you like his facebook.
Nico Rosberg - also for Biking and his many weekly gym trips.

Unfittest
Sergio Perez -he's prone to getting sick...how many times has he been sick during a race weekend. Still a trooper for racing with an illness (In Most Cases)

Notable mention:
Kimi Räikkönen - I know a lot of you are going to disagree with me on this, but the kimster has gotten a bit round (facial region mostly) must be all the Vodka and Rosewater. Still my favorite driver on the grid.

If you look at it age wise this year, then in no particular order.
Michael Schumacher
Jenson Button
Mark Webber
infact come to think of it , all of them

_________________
Loading Quote.......
--------------------
PF1 Pick 10
Aus13: 2nd
Chi13: 3rd

All my female friends think Button is the fittest by a mile...

_________________
The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights

Schumacher was well known for his almost paranoid fitness regime in his heydey but I am not sure if he is as dedicated now.

Just guessing, but looking at the current crop, Button and Hulkenburg look fit by the way the walk around etc. But it is difficult to tell exactly. I know that they have all got to be very fit to cope with the G-forces and fluid loss during racing. Vettel looks reed thin but I have never seen him look exhausted after a gruelling race. Appearances can be deceptive.

_________________
Vettel / Raikkonen / Button

I don't know but Schumi at his prime looked amazing. He wasn't bulky with muscle but he was absolutely ripped.

I saw something with Kimi and Mark Blundell and Kimi's regime was amazing. I don't know how it rates to other F1 drivers really, but it compared his heart rate to Blundells throughout and Kimi seemed to be taking it easy almost despite the pretty hard exercise he was doing.

Video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ylRVtZ6Ilw

Perhaps it also depends on the kind of exercise that an F1 driver does. When Prost returned to F1 in 1993 after a year's layoff, Murray Walker commented a bit about his fitness regime through his F1 career. Apparently, Prost concentrated on cycling and swimming, believing that those regimes helped to keep his body loose and supple. He might have had a point.

_________________
Vettel / Raikkonen / Button

I know Hamilton can do more push ups in a minute than Button, but Button claims he was disadvantaged by his long levers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lpAgBwIgOI

The cross fit trainig he does makes quite fit , too, hikking up the mountains & free climbing you need to be very, fit, too.
IMo Mclaren makes sure their drivers are amongst the fittest out there. Perez will go to a very hard training regime this winter & the years to come

_________________
"Everything you can imagine is real." Pablo Picasso

Button's triathloning suggest he could run or swim further than most drivers but there's apparently little direct crossover between the demands of F1 and those disciplines. Most drivers seem obsessed with cycling these days, it would be very interesting to see them race.

_________________
Klaus Kinski: making me question my heroes since January 2013

Button
Webber
Schumacher
Bottas

_________________

I also have one of these.

isnt/wasnt schumi the only driver on the grid to smoke tho?

Kimi likes to smoke..

_________________

Signature created by Adaemus

There was a thread on smoking drivers recently. As you might imagine it stayed bang on topic and absolutely didn't dissolve into tirades from anti-smokers spouting hyperbolic diatribes, or pro-smokers complaining about being criminalised and marginalised.

Turns out di Resta smokes, Kimi and Michael smoke (at least) on occasion, and a mystery driver 'smokes constantly' according to Rosberg. I reckon it's Petrov.

_________________
Klaus Kinski: making me question my heroes since January 2013

yikes hope i didnt open a tin of worms!!

Forget the Drivers. If you mean FIT look at Vettels Trainer. A god.

Cycling gets your cardio going. Maybe that's why? Plus, they learn the track at the same time

Fittest:

Lewis Hamilton
Jenson Button
Michael Schumacher

_________________
Driver Instructor & Test Driver

The only way to settle this is a series of competitions in the off season to keep us fans entertained

running
10km
100m
400m
800m

Lifting etc etc

add some events guys that you would like to see

Alonso has a beast of a Neck so lateral body raises from your head lol

That's the argument settled then.

I'd imagine that they're all pretty fit these days. I used to do some running and I have to say that some of Button's times have been impressive!

I agree with others that during the height of his powers, Schumacher looked like he had the perfect physique for racing. I remember there was some story about him falling off his boat in or around 1997 and he had to swim a mile or two to safety.

Also, as the years go on, I think memory muscle and a natural fitness comes about. I'm 30 now and, though I haven't trained for a year or two, I could probably run 5km now, because I've spent so many previous years running. I don't *look* fit. When I was 18 or 19, I was a skinny as a rake and probably looked fit. But I couldn't have run 1km let alone 5km. So, probably for people like Kimi, they've been racing for so many years now, the body is used to it. I'm the first one to agree that he looks a bit podgy, but this year it's often been him at the end of a race doing some attacking.

One person that concerns me is Bruno Senna - I do wonder if his fitness level is up there. Often wondered if it affected his performance.

Interesting thread

_________________

http://www.geoffnolan.com

Kimi has always had a double chin

I read something by a sports physio about how it's a bit of a myth that F1 drivers are superfit. Fit yes, but nothing special and nowhere near the level of tennis pros (the only example given). Just one view, and I don't really see how someone can say that as there must be huge variation amongst the drivers.

I remember Ron saying Kovi was 'appallingly unfit' when he came to them (and the team Kovi had just left said Petrov was too unfit, so god knows what the Russian was/is like).

_________________
Klaus Kinski: making me question my heroes since January 2013

That seems more like speculation. F1 drivers are fitter than Football or Tennis players for example. The fitness required to drive an F1 car during a race is much higher than it is playing a Tennis or Football match.

_________________
Driver Instructor & Test Driver

Wasn't there an article about this a few years back that listed the drivers?

As for who is the fittest now? I reckon the actual answer might surprise folk. I remember Eddie Irvine getting slated for his fitness then after tests it turned out he was in fact one of the fittest.

And McLaren have said Perez wasn't the best when they tested him.

_________________
Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

That's not right. As I said in the other thread, Fitness of F1 Drivers in their discipline is unique to the sport and therefore different to athletes from other, more physically dependent sports. I'll take any F1 Driver into a Racquetball court and they will be huffin' and puffin' just like anyone else who doesn't play the sport regularly. F1 drivers are fit to a high degree but as well, their bodies are trained and well adjusted over the course of many years (used to, if you will), to the rigors of all the forces placed on the body while driving on the limit and for them it's just another day at the office.

_________________
Second place is the first loser!

No idea, but (as a female) I agree that Button is by far the most 'fit' .

It also has to be said that they all have thick necks!

But as other posters have pointed out, I'm sure they are all v fit nowadays. I tend to look at how exhausted they look at the end of the race, and/or how much they are sweating.

Rubbish. The fitness required to drive an F1 car is just DIFFERENT than what is needed for tennis, which is different from what is needed for football.

Different strengths, different muscle shapes, different cardio demands, different endurance demands, etc.

_________________

Interesting thread

From the Hamilton Button press up video, Hamilton managed 75 in 60s, the Superstars record dates from 1984 when British Olympic team swimmer Robin Brew managed 71!

I note that F1 driver Jody Sheckter remains 2nd in the overall list for Squats at 113 in 60s, 5 behind Brian Jacks, who later copied Scheckter's technique, in the true tradition of Ferrari in F1 Jody 'inovated'

_________________
Sebastien Vettel, the youngest driver ever to have the fastest car in F1 for four consecutive years

First time I've actually seen that press-up video and some (alot) of Hamilton's press-ups were pretty cheeky, he wasn't going all the way up at the top, looks to me like Jense was.

Michael Schumacher
I suspect it takes a bit more time in the gym as a 40+ than a 30+. Plus being in the shape he is/was at that age is very special indeed.

If you pit MSC and Button on a marathon though, Button would probably win, but IMO it's a bigger achievement for a 43 year old to be in that kind of shape.

Are you also implying that the fitness needed to play bocce ball is just different from that needed for tennis? Although different disciplines certainly emphasize different types of fitness, I wouldn't go as far as saying that ranking athletic performance quantitatively across disciplines is impossible.

I remember when Button challenged Hamilton to compete in a Triathlon,
and Hamilton bottled out. Bound to get into a Button,Hamilton fight
sooner or later in the thread.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-1031672/You-scared-Lewis-Hamilton-backs-Button-triathlon.html

It isn't impossible if you pick individual tests. But I would think across a range, athletes from 1 sport might outscore those from another in a couple of tests, and lose out in others. Can you say one is more fit than the other?

_________________

Susie Wolff is really fit

_________________

Theres no way you could seperate the fittest guys because there isn't just such a thing as who's the fittest, there are so many areas of fitness that it just isn't possible to say whos the fittest, certainly you could pick a group of drivers who are fitter than other groups of drivers as many have done, and i remember McLaren said that Perez was gonna have to work hard to improve his fitness.

For example Jenson does a lot of triathlons which suggests he works on his cardio a lot more than others might, whereas Lewis does a lot of rock climbing and stuff so probably does weights, i saw a video where he said he does a lot of pull ups which makes sense. Jenson has more endurance and Lewis is stronger from what it would seem

You just have to pick something like the Army PT test, where you measure the amount of press-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups done in 2 minutes along with the timed 2 mile run. Something basic that can assess a level of core-strength and cardio.

Well, you can group them by saying, one group of drivers are fitter than another group of drivers, but's that probably about it. Drivers will have areas of fitness that they are stronger in, and areas that they are weaker in.

_________________
Forza Fernando !

Both have different preferences how they keep themselves fit, but IMo they are equally fit
Maybe Button is better at long distance cyling, therefore Hamilton is better in the gym
Schumacher said recently he hates running, therfore he does more cycling& swimming.
Hamilton is not a big cycling fan , but he runs & swims a lot, too.

_________________
"Everything you can imagine is real." Pablo Picasso

I agree with this.
You have to be reasonably fit or at least have good endurance and ability to maintain concentration under intense exertion, and be very strong in some areas. However, this pales in comparison with primarily athletic sports. There are some very fit F1 drivers but there are some very successful examples that show that, while this may be beneficial, it's not vital.

_________________

Webber

_________________