Valtteri Bottas has recently been attracting quite a bit of attention not only due to appearing in quirky advertisements but also due to the changes in his styling. Something similar happened during the build-up to the Hungarian Grand Prix when the Finnish driver joined the parade with a cooling vest on and his former teammate Lewis Hamilton couldn’t resist but roast him for it.
Hamilton first joked with Bottas about the vest but when asked what he was saying to him by F1 presenter Laura Winter, the Briton proudly said that he would have made the vest into a lollipop pack.
“I was just saying if I had this, I would design it as a lollipop pack,” Hamilton told Winter. “And I would just sit there, just eat lollipops the whole time.” Hamilton then smirked and called himself a “Genius” for thinking of that.
Lewis told Bottas “I’d design it as a Lollipop Pack” as he mocked his outfit during the Drivers’ Parade #HungariangGP pic.twitter.com/1CfaRWdWGN
— SlowestPitstop (@LordPerceval19) July 21, 2024
Bottas was also sporting his iconic mullet as he has done lately but this time he complimented it with a blacked mustache, making it look like a fake milk or cappuccino mustache.
While Hamilton enjoyed roasting Bottas for his cooling vest, it wasn’t there just for fun. The Hungarian Grand Prix weekend has been unusually hotter this season and Bottas, being a Finnish driver, is used to cooler weather conditions.
Formula 1 is soon to test air conditioning in the driver cockpits
The cooling vest, which is worn by the drivers usually for the Grand Prix on Sunday, is an essential part of driver safety. The temperature inside the cockpit easily goes north of 50 degrees Celcius during a race and the drivers need to be cooled down to prevent excessive dehydration.
The Qatar GP last season was an extreme example of what happens to drivers when things get too hot, with some of them even passing out while driving. However, due to their design, they too come down to normal temperatures quickly during the race, making the FIA think of a different solution to the cooling problem.
Following the scorching 2023 Qatar Grand Prix, the FIA has decided to experiment with new ways to cool drivers during a race. For the first time, Formula 1 will test air conditioning at the Zandvoort GP. The FIA has developed a special system that… https://t.co/IZbtdw7mMR
— Grandprixnews.com (@grand_prix_news) July 20, 2024
As a result, the governing body is thinking of implementing an air conditioning system inside the driver’s cockpit, which will go through its first trial phase at one of the practice sessions during the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort.
According to reports, the air conditioning system for the Formula 1 car will not be a single big unit at the front or the sides, but instead, it will be built by using multiple smaller aircon vents surrounding the driver to ensure maximum cooling for the drivers.
