Lewis Hamilton suggested that he may have lost around 3kg in weight due to the high temperatures at the French Grand Prix and the fact that his drinks bottle wasn’t working.
The entire race weekend at Paul Ricard has been a warm one, with 30C+ conditions every single day and, of course, that makes it hard work for the drivers in the already hot environment that is a Formula 1 car’s cockpit.
Keeping hydrated is of vital importance, then, and the drivers drink plenty of fluids before a race to ensure they are in decent condition throughout, though they also have a drinks bottle in the car to keep them going during the Grand Prix.
Despite that, it’s common for them to lose about 2kg in weight thanks to the loss of fluids via sweat and so when a bottle stops working, as Lewis’ did, the weight loss can increase.
Indeed, speaking after the race in the press conference here at Paul Ricard, Lewis estimated that he might have lost 3kg in weight due to the problems he was facing:
“What amazing weather we’ve had, and it was a tough race because my drinks bottle didn’t work.
“If I’m really honest I very rarely often drink during the race, I often forget to. I hydrated a lot before the race.
“By lap 20 the thing didn’t work and I could really have done with a drink. I haven’t tried it for so long so maybe it hasn’t worked for ages. Maybe the water evaporated, who knows!
“I didn’t see my weight just now, but I would imagine [I lost] probably around three kilos.”
A tough race for Lewis, then, but he still managed to finish P2 as Charles Leclerc threw his Ferrari in the wall whilst Carlos Sainz was out of position in the other Ferrari and Sergio Perez just didn’t have the speed to beat the Mercedes.
