Like most of his Formula One colleagues, Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz junior, is undergoing a very intense training period before the 2017 Formula One Championship gets underway at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne this March.
The young Spaniard, son of the famous Carlos Sainz jnr, is hard at work making sure his body is in peak shape for what will be a tougher physical challenge this season due to the new technical regulations being implemented for 2017, specifically the extra downforce that the cars will generate as well as the extra grip from the wider tyres and the faster speeds they are expected to travel at.
Therefore, the prediction is that the driver's will undergo higher forces than normal, especially on the neck and he Sainz knows he needs to be fully prepared…
"Formula 1 cars, even if they were slower in recent years, they've never been easy in terms of the physical strain they place on drivers," Carlos said on the team's official website. "They have different demands and it could be easy one year and a bit more difficult the next. You always need to be at a very high fitness level.”
“It's true that probably this year, they're taking us to another extreme level that we don't even know about at the moment. I'm preparing for...expecting the worst. I'm expecting that after five laps in the first test in Barcelona, my neck is going to be gone and I'm going to be at 180 heartbeats per minute!”
“If I make that assumption and train accordingly, then of course that will not really be the case. So that's why I started earlier than usual and I started pushing early. It's impossible to be too fit and too strong. At the first test in Barcelona the team will naturally be expecting me to do more than 100 laps a day and I plan to be ready for that."
Aussie racer Daniel Ricciardo, who races for Sainz' sister team, Red Bull Racing, is currently undergoing an intense summer program in his native Australia where he too is putting extreme demands on his body ahead of the season opener.
