Picture in your head, for just one second, the kind of person you think goes on strike about conditions in the workplace. You probably think of workers and teachers and civil servants, right? People with low wages, striking for better work conditions; the backbone of the economy asking to be taken more seriously. Those are the ones who go on strike, right?
You may have noticed that there weren't many drivers on the grid in the build-up to today's Grand Prix in Bahrain. The ones who were absent were participating in civil action. Now, before you judge the overpaid (fine, some of them are self-funded, and they do a dangerous job, but they still get paid more than the GDP of several countries around the world) for being particular, they're protesting their personal physios being witheld from the grid. It's important for them to have massages before the race.
(I hear the sound of disgusted snorting.)
In their defense, they do get bashed around a lot. They might get paid ridiculous sums of money, but they do a difficult job. As well-fitted as those seats are, there's still a lot of lateral forces that they're subjected to. The force of the lateral G necessitates static muscle contractions. For those of you who haven't studied biomechanics, static muscle contractions are the hardest to maintain. Think about it, which is easier: to hold your arm out level with your shoulder for a minute, or to lift your arm through its full range of motion for a minute? Go ahead, try it. Moving is easier. (It's easy to explain in terms of capilliary pumps and stuff, but I won't bore you with the details.) So, imagine sitting in a cramped cockpit and having to resist moving against a force twice or three times your body weight for a few hours at a stretch. That must give you a bit of muscle ache. In addition, epidemiologically, sports people suffer fewer injuries and the injuries they do sustain are less severe if they have a trainer/physio schedule. Healthier drivers are better for the sport, yes? So we all agree that they need physios to be around before/after a race to make sure the boys are most able to perform.
Bernie Ecclestone (the FIA boss, for the non-motorsports folk among you) says that teams should arrange to have the physios to be on staff lists. That's all well and good, except that this year, there are limits on the number of staff that a team can employ. Good old Bernie and his cost-cutting strategies! (Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the F1 cost-cut. It's allowed three new teams on the grid [as controversial as some of them might be], and it's allowed smaller teams to actually have a fighting chance against Ferrari and McLaren.)
The bottom line is this: for every driver, there are a hundred people making him able to perform - physios, nutritionists, personal trainers, race engineers, mechanics. Everyone has them. Everyone needs them. However, do they really need them on the grid? It would seem from pre-race coverage that the sole purpose of people's trainers/physios is to be a water bottle holder/umbrella holder/towel holder...basically, they're walking carrier bags. Perhaps instead of the drivers on the grid before the race, they should organise for the physios/trainers to stand out there singing "Umbrella" a la Rhianna just to prove their point.
You may have noticed that there weren't many drivers on the grid in the build-up to today's Grand Prix in Bahrain. The ones who were absent were participating in civil action. Now, before you judge the overpaid (fine, some of them are self-funded, and they do a dangerous job, but they still get paid more than the GDP of several countries around the world) for being particular, they're protesting their personal physios being witheld from the grid. It's important for them to have massages before the race.
(I hear the sound of disgusted snorting.)
In their defense, they do get bashed around a lot. They might get paid ridiculous sums of money, but they do a difficult job. As well-fitted as those seats are, there's still a lot of lateral forces that they're subjected to. The force of the lateral G necessitates static muscle contractions. For those of you who haven't studied biomechanics, static muscle contractions are the hardest to maintain. Think about it, which is easier: to hold your arm out level with your shoulder for a minute, or to lift your arm through its full range of motion for a minute? Go ahead, try it. Moving is easier. (It's easy to explain in terms of capilliary pumps and stuff, but I won't bore you with the details.) So, imagine sitting in a cramped cockpit and having to resist moving against a force twice or three times your body weight for a few hours at a stretch. That must give you a bit of muscle ache. In addition, epidemiologically, sports people suffer fewer injuries and the injuries they do sustain are less severe if they have a trainer/physio schedule. Healthier drivers are better for the sport, yes? So we all agree that they need physios to be around before/after a race to make sure the boys are most able to perform.
Bernie Ecclestone (the FIA boss, for the non-motorsports folk among you) says that teams should arrange to have the physios to be on staff lists. That's all well and good, except that this year, there are limits on the number of staff that a team can employ. Good old Bernie and his cost-cutting strategies! (Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the F1 cost-cut. It's allowed three new teams on the grid [as controversial as some of them might be], and it's allowed smaller teams to actually have a fighting chance against Ferrari and McLaren.)
The bottom line is this: for every driver, there are a hundred people making him able to perform - physios, nutritionists, personal trainers, race engineers, mechanics. Everyone has them. Everyone needs them. However, do they really need them on the grid? It would seem from pre-race coverage that the sole purpose of people's trainers/physios is to be a water bottle holder/umbrella holder/towel holder...basically, they're walking carrier bags. Perhaps instead of the drivers on the grid before the race, they should organise for the physios/trainers to stand out there singing "Umbrella" a la Rhianna just to prove their point.
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