Coping with Rising Temperatures in the Middle East

After racing in the warmth of Bahrain last weekend, BWT Alpine Formula One Team heads to Jeddah for what is expected to be another hot Grand Prix - with engineers keeping one eye on the thermometer and the other on the racetrack.

This year’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix takes place in early April to avoid a clash with the holy month of Ramadan, and the later-than-usual date means teams and drivers will contend with hotter and more humid conditions for the event on the shores of the Red Sea.

Forecasts suggest daytime temperatures could peak at around 35°C on Saturday and Sunday, dipping only to around 27°C after sunset - when most of the on-track action takes place. While that’s only around 10 degrees warmer than the average race weekend, the knock-on effects for both car and driver are significant.

As the mercury rises, the air becomes less dense. That might sound trivial, but for a Formula 1 car, it’s anything but. With thinner air, the car produces less aerodynamic downforce, affecting grip, handling, and ultimately lap time. It also changes tyre behaviour, placing additional demands on both strategy and set-up.

Then there is the heat itself. Key areas of the car - such as the power unit and brakes - already operate at high temperatures, and in hotter ambient conditions, they require extra cooling.

Richard Lockwood, Strategy and Sporting Director

“You’ll often see very different bodywork configurations on the cars as engineers come up with solutions to dissipate heat. For aerodynamic performance, you want the car as closed up as possible - but you need ducts and cooling apertures, otherwise the car would simply get too hot to run.”

It’s not just the cars that suffer. The drivers, wrapped in fireproof underwear and overalls, receive very little airflow in the cockpit - meaning temperatures can soar well beyond the ambient.

Following the gruelling Qatar Grand Prix in 2023, where several drivers suffered from heat exhaustion, the FIA has introduced a new cockpit cooling system this season aimed at improving driver welfare.

The system becomes mandatory if the FIA declares a ‘Heat Hazard’ - based on the heat index, a metric combining temperature and humidity and other factors. When the index exceeds 31°C, the cooling system must be used during the race.

“When we raced in Bahrain last Sunday, the heat index was over 31°C in the daytime,” says Lockwood, “but since the race started at dusk, the heat index dropped and we weren’t required to use it. If it’s needed this weekend, what we have inside the car is essentially a cold source - like a big block of ice - and from that, cold liquid circulates through a series of tubes woven into a vest the driver wears.”

The systems and the regulations are still in a development phase, and drivers can currently choose whether or not to wear the cooling vest. These regulations introduced this year allow for an increase in car mass to accommodate the system - with additional ballast required if a driver opts out.

It remains to be seen whether the FIA will declare a Heat Hazard for the race at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit this weekend, but as Formula 1 visits different regions of the globe, the challenge of racing in extreme conditions is one where engineers, teams and drivers alike need to keep a cool head.