Analysis: How F1 physical challenge declined since Ayrton Senna era
The study that has begun into ways of making Formula 1 cars more challenging to drive follows ongoing complaints about them being too easy at the moment.
Although the recent Singapore Grand Prix showed that current cars can be tough in situations such as extreme temperatures, more often than not drivers can finish a race in peak condition.
It is a world away from how the sport was decades ago, when sometimes drivers were taken to the edge of exhaustion.
One iconic moment in F1 history that illustrates how hard grand prix cars used to be to drive was the 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix.
Ayrton Senna was so focused on a victory on home ground that he battled through muscle cramps caused by the physical and emotional effort of late-race gearbox troubles and a downpour to triumph. After the line, he was so exhausted he had to be helped out of the car.
In charge of the Brazilian's fitness then was Josef Leberer, and the veteran trainer has no doubts that F1 now is nowhere near the physical challenge it was then.
"What happened that day is far away from where we are now," says Leberer, who currently works in F1 with Sauber.
"I am sure a lot of the current drivers would love to show their strength like Senna did, but they don't get to use it in the car any more.
"The physical side and mental side is very different.
"It is much easier to drive the car now. The guys can come from kindergarten now and they can drive the car.
"From the physical point of view it has never been easier than now."
Leberer is a man who has seen it all during more than two decades of F1 involvement, and thinks the fact drivers seem unflustered at the end of races owes more to the way the cars are than increased fitness levels.
"It is great you can have youth in F1, but I remember drivers being really exhausted, sweating, and nearly fainting. Now they get out and some of them don't even sweat.
"When I looked after Senna and [Alain] Prost the physical demand was enormous.
"They had bruises on their elbows, the pain from gear changes, neck difficulties. It was so much harder then."
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/116032
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