Ask The Apex

[Wombcat]

F1-drivers train a lot to improve their endurance. Jenson Button did triathlons. Nico Rosberg ran a marathon. I'm sure others to various sports as well.
The benefit of a drug like EPO is that you can recover faster from training, which means you can train more and still recover.

Apart from endurance, drivers need strong neckmuscles (and maybe other muscles as well). That also involves training.

So I'm pretty sure that a performance enhancing drug will benefit a drivers' training program.
And if they're barely tested, it's also very likely (imo) that at least some of them will use at least some of those drugs.

 

[FB]

Drivers do hit some pretty high pulse rates during the races. This link takes you to an extract from Sid Watkins Life at the Limit book (which I can thoroughly recommend) Life At The Limit

It reports on some work done with Didier Pironi and Gilles Villeneuve at Monaco in 1981. Didier peaked at 212 bpm during practice. I think I'd probably be dead if my heart ever it that rate (that doesn't make sense but you know what I mean).

 

[RasputinLives]

I seem to remember in the not too distant past that a lot of drivers suddenly lost a lot of body weight extremely quickly in order to assist in new weight restriction rules. Not sure whether they'd be classed as 'performance enhancing' but there are a lot of chemicals that would of assisted with that. Must have been tempting, especially for the taller drivers.

 

[gethinceri]

I've made curries that can assist with rapid weight loss.

 

[teabagyokel]

gethinceri - Those are not considered performance enhancing.

 

[Bill Boddy]

If you watch the Eurosport you will see some live details of some of the cyclists; the highest heart rate that I have seen was 170 bpm which is 3.5 times as many as mine was the last time that I used the blood pressure system at our local doctor's surgery.

 

[Bill Boddy]

Tomas Enge was stripped of his F3000 championship after being caught out using recreational drugs. I have a feeling that this may not have been the first time that he was caught.

Enge loses F3000 title - F2 - Autosport

 

[gethinceri]

My max heart rate (during threshold power test) is 204 bpm.
If the "standard" 220 minus your age was true I'd be 16 years of age, I'm not.

 

[Rutherford]

F1-drivers train a lot to improve their endurance. Jenson Button did triathlons. Nico Rosberg ran a marathon. I'm sure others to various sports as well.
The benefit of a drug like EPO is that you can recover faster from training, which means you can train more and still recover.

Apart from endurance, drivers need strong neckmuscles (and maybe other muscles as well). That also involves training.

So I'm pretty sure that a performance enhancing drug will benefit a drivers' training program.
And if they're barely tested, it's also very likely (imo) that at least some of them will use at least some of those drugs.

EPO is not used for recovery, what they would be using is steroids. EPO is there to increase endurance, as it increases the time to exhaustion. Red blood cell production can also be stimulated by exercising at high altitudes.

 

[Wombcat]

EPO is not used for recovery, what they would be using is steroids. EPO is there to increase endurance, as it increases the time to exhaustion. Red blood cell production can also be stimulated by exercising at high altitudes.

Yes, it increases your red blood cell production, which improves the transport of oxygen to your muscles. Which means you can train harder and recover better.

Although you are correct that it increases time to exhaustion, the biggest effect is that due to that you can train harder (stimulate your muscles more) and still recover as fast, which increases your performance. If you're going to use EPO to improve your performance, you're not going to use it just during races, but you'll mainly want to use it during your training. Especially if there are no out-of-competition tests. Then there's no risk at all (of getting caught) when using EPO.

Marion Jones did not use EPO to run the 100 meters faster, but to train harder, so she could run the 100 meters faster.

 

[Rutherford]

Wombcat

I would like to read about EPO used in recovery, I haven't read about that and I found any articles on it, do you have any?
To my knowledge only steroids are used in recovery which is why a lot of athletes suffer a decline in testosterone after using them.

 

[Wombcat]

As I said, it is not used in recovery. It is used during periods of training (or at least, then it will have the greatest effect), because you can train harder and still recover.

 

[siffert_fan]

Does anyone here know if a driver can still be black flagged for obstructing other drivers? If so, how blatant does the obstruction have to be?

 

[TR]

I think as long as you are fighting for position and not driving "erratically" or "endangering" the other drivers, pretty much anything goes. (See e.g. Hamilton backing up Rosberg in the season decider last year.)

 

[Incubus]

Why were tobacco companies allowed to display their full branding at the 1985 European GP at Brands Hatch, several years after tobacco branding was banned during GP events in Britain and Germany?

at the British and German GP earlier in the year the cars sported their regular logo-only liveries.

So what difference to the tocacco legislation of the time would the simple fact of calling it the "european GP" make to allow teams to sport their full tbacco liveries?

 

[RasputinLives]

I might be wrong but I think the banning of tobacco advertising came much later than 1985. This is the 1990 Mclaren for instance.

 

[Incubus]

The banning of tabacco advertising in sport (or in motor racing anyway) came much earlier in the UK and Germany. John Watson for example won the 1981 British GP on a Marlboro-free McLaren:

 

[RasputinLives]

I did not know/remember that! I checked and here is the 1990 Mclaren at the British Grand Prix.

Shows how effective the ban was!

 

[Titch]

Wasn't there a special ruling , organised by Bernie of course , that excluded F1 from the tobacco ban ?

 

[The Pits]

F1 - Grandprix.com > Features > Feature > The history of anti-tobacco legislation

Not sure if that sheds any light on the matter.

It looks like there have been bans, at a country and sporting level, along with negotiation around exemptions, based on where the event is going to be shown. For example, it will depend on which country the event is being televised for as to whether the ban is required or not, rather than simply the country in which the event is held. There is almost certainly some of these combinations at play in relation to the photos above.