Budapest, 26th May 2014 - Sean Gelael’s FIA Formula 3 European Championship season continues with the next round at the Hungaroring, near the beautiful Hungarian capital city of Budapest, with three more races on 31st May/1st June.
This is the first visit for the championship to the circuit, which has hosted the Hungarian Grand Prix since it opened in 1986, but the drivers did get two days of testing there before the season started.
Indonesian ace Sean ran well in that test, and his confidence is further buoyed after he drove his Jagonya Ayam with Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen to his first championship point in the last round on the Pau street circuit in France.
The Hungaroring is packed full of long, medium-speed corners, so is incredibly technical. Indeed, when the track opened 28 years ago, some people said it was like a street circuit without any houses!
With the summer climate very hot in this corner of South-East Europe, together with the fact that the drivers have very few straights to get any rest, this track is very demanding on the fitness levels of all drivers, Gelael included.
Fortunately, most of the leading F3 drivers have dedicated fitness help, and Sean is no exception. The Jagonya Ayam with Carlin drivers use an English company called Pro Performance, which was set up in 2002 to improve the performance of elite athletes using sports science.
Over the years the Pro Performance team gathered more and more customers in motor racing, where sports science has a particularly big impact on performance.
“Hydration has a big impact because of the concentration involved, especially when the driver is trying to repeat quick lap times,” explains Dan Williams, who looks after Gelael. “We do physical work with the drivers, cardiovascular, strength, and this all helps in their decision-making ability on the track.
“Formula 3 tends to be the first step in racing where the drivers notice the physical strain and fatigue factor, and a lot of the guys were very tired after the last round in Pau because of the great concentration needed. The Hungaroring is also very demanding – it can get up to 30 degrees there so drivers do struggle.”
Williams says that Sean’s fitness schedule is broken down into macro cycles depending on the race calendar. Most of the hard training is done in winter, when there is no racing, and then during the season everything is based on the driver peaking at race weekends. There is a break in the racing in the late summer, before another big push for the end of the season.
Even when he returns to Indonesia between races for school, Gelael “has work to do on a few areas of fitness, and has to follow a strict programme.”
Being one of the tallest drivers, Sean has to be very wary to keep his weight down, as teams can move ballast around the car – which brings it up to its minimum weight – to improve performance. The lighter a driver is, the more ballast is available.
“Sean has to manage his weight really well,” says Williams. “He has very long limbs, so we have to be careful with his training programme as that can make him more susceptible to back injuries.”
Over the race weekend, Williams is acting more as a physiotherapist. “We do warm-up exercises with the drivers, muscle-activating things, to get them focused and ready. I get Sean to do stretching as he has a long back and legs, there is massage to improve the blood flow and sometimes variation with boxing and skipping.
“We look after diet and nutrition too, and we are also someone the driver can talk to in private, just to let off a bit of stream if a race has gone badly!”
Fitness is yet another example of experts playing in a part in the performance of a racing driver. You can be sure that if Sean does as well in Hungary as he did in Pau, Williams will be just as proud as his team and family! (ms/arl)
