The Qatar Grand Prix turned out to be a huge test for the drivers as the unbearably high temperature made things extremely difficult. With that, F1 journalist Nate Saunders revealed on the ESPN F1 Unlapped Podcast, that the drivers couldn’t even drink water during the race because it had turned into “boiling tea.”
This meant that dehydration became a major issue for the drivers throughout the race as they did not have access to water. They kept losing massive amounts of fluids throughout the race and were unable to replenish it.
Sometimes I forget how hot and humid it is in our region , the only reason why the grid didn’t suffer the same in Bahrain and Jeddah cause the weather is nice in March , and coming to AD in November its cooler , i think it’s better to move Qatar GP to much later stage of the… pic.twitter.com/UZfJlB71Y0
— ahmed baokbah 🇸🇦🏎✈️ (@ahmed_baokbah) October 8, 2023
With track temperatures never dropping below 98.6° F throughout the race, the fact that the race was being held at night didn’t really help at all. Hosting the Qatar GP in October, became a huge problem for the drivers.
No water to drink for the drivers in Qatar GP
Nate Saunders appeared in the ESPN F1 Unlapped Podcast after the Qatar GP. There, he spoke about what the drivers were going through inside the cockpit during the race. He revealed that the drivers did not have access to drinking water as it had become really hot as well.
Saunders said, “Some of the drivers said that they couldn’t drink their water obviously. Because as mentioned with the cockpits being so hot, they were basically just drinking boiling tea at that point.”
Overall, fans seemed really disheartened and disappointed with the conditions in Lusail. Many even pushed for Qatar to be removed from the calendar altogether. However, after the race, the FIA intervened to make sure that this doesn’t happen in 2024.
The FIA intervenes and takes a stance on the Qatar F1 situation
The FIA has decided that the Qatar GP in 2024 will be held in December. The temperatures there are much lower in the month of December. In 2021, the race took place in November. As a result, we didn’t see the drivers face similar issues.
This is probably the only decision that the FIA could have taken because it was already declared that any kind of cooling system inside the cockpit would be completely redundant. Thus, having the race at the very end of the year would probably be the best for everyone.
