Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson revealed his way to combat his height issue which affects the weight of his Formula 1 car after Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen’s water bottle trouble in the Hungarian Grand Prix.
As the race started on Sunday at Hungaroring, it was revealed that Ferrari forgot to connect Raikkonen’s water bottle in the car which meant the Finn was without water in all the 70 laps of the grand prix.
The Finn had a long radio call as well with the team to understand the issue but in the end he managed to see-through the race without major troubles. Raikkonen said that the intense pace in the race meant his focus was never on the bottle.
“It was nothing really,” said Raikkonen. “Usually, it is nice to get in the mouth sometimes little drinks every now and then. It happened today that we had a small issue with it but apart from that there wasn’t any issue.
“It is just…not a big deal in the end. The race went pretty quickly because we were pushing all the time.” Raikkonen’s ability to still complete the race despite no water in such hot conditions was praised by many.
At the same time, Sauber’s Ericsson also revealed that he had no water in the race as well. In fact, the Swede mentioned that he has not used the water bottle for the last two years in order to combat the weight issue of the car.
“[I] haven’t had a drink system installed for over 2 years [including today],” he wrote. “It weighs around 1.5 kg. So, we choose not to use it because of the weight. Just one of the reasons why we should have the same weight for all drivers.”
Ericsson added that he lost around 2.5-3 kg of his weight in Hungary but usually it is less than that for racing drivers. He combats the no-drinking in the race by hydrating as much pre-race along with physical exercise so that he can complete the race without water.
The minimum overall weight of the car this year is 734 kg including the driver, where in 80 kg is the minimum weight for a driver. For a tall driver like Ericsson, who is nearly 5 feet 10 inches, his weight becomes a problem in the races.
Any amount of weight saved does help in few tenths per lap. Force India’s Esteban Ocon also has a similar issue as he is the tallest driver on the grid at 6 feet 1 inches – but his light weight despite the tall figure helps him in the car.
