Esteban Ocon Reveals Physical Deformity Common Among F1 Drivers: “One of the Dark Sides of Driving”

Motorsport, for the longest of time, has suffered from a misconception — that racers just need to drive and the vehicle does the rest. There’s also the popular belief that F1 drivers are not athletes in the same sense as other sports. Well, Haas driver Esteban Ocon has just debunked that myth.

With the growing appeal of Formula 1 in the USA, and thanks to the huge social media following enjoyed by the drivers, fans have started to get a better insight into the lives of these drivers and what it takes to maintain their physique at the pinnacle of motorsport.

F1 is a physically demanding sport that sees drivers pull up to six times their body weight in corners, owing to the g-forces. Moreover, the intense heat also means that they can lose almost 9 pounds of bodyweight during races in humid and hot conditions such as in Singapore and Qatar.

In his latest vlog, Ocon came onto his YouTube channel to reveal some of the shocking yet lesser-known impact that an F1 driver’s body suffers. He revealed that a lifetime spent in high-speed machinery can even lead to physical deformity in many drivers!

Esteban Ocon reveals the ‘dark side’ of racing

One of the most striking aspects of an F1 car is just how snug the cockpit is. In fact, the seat is tailor-made for a specific driver with hours of sitting in modeling foam to get the shape of the driver down to a tee.

Naturally, this means that their entire body — and especially their back — is constantly rubbing against the cockpit. This leads to a particular deformity just under the shoulder blades, as explained by Ocon.

“You might be wondering what’s that in the back. This little [bulge] that you see here, it’s not muscle. It’s years of sitting in the car. I’m quite lean so, basically the body tries and creates something to protect the bone, and it creates like a little ball of skin around it. Few drivers have it, and unfortunately, I have it as well,” he revealed.

“Well, that’s one of the dark sides of driving,” he added.

Ocon, like all the other F1 drivers, takes a lot of care when it comes to his body. He has a very rigorous training regime to maintain his health, his neck strength, and his core stability. Moreover, he also has to go through a very dedicated nutrition plan to ensure that not only he performs at his peak, but also maintains the regulated weight limit.

However, he did concede that not everything about his lifestyle as a racing driver is healthy, like the little bumps on his shoulders. That said, he has made peace with it and knows that it is part and parcel of competing at the highest level of motor racing.