# F1 Drivers most fit in the world?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f1-drivers-most-fit-in-the-world/321795>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 15, 2005, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f1-drivers-most-fit-in-the-world/321795 "2005-09-15T15:27:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BigBoote66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@BigBoote66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigBoote66)\
**Post date:** [September 16, 2005, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f1-drivers-most-fit-in-the-world/321795/21 "2005-09-16T15:09:50Z")

</div>

> [@snailboy](#):
>
> I read that, and I took it to mean that the racers would already have to be in excellent shape to withstand the stress. I suppose only the original poster can verify for certain what he meant.

Yeah, that’s what I meant. I was not intending to imply that merely having a high heart rate produced fitness, but that extraordinary fitness was required to endure the race.

My actual question seems to have been obscured a bit, which is: Is there any definitive information about the average/max heart rates for F1 drivers, and possibly how does this compare to other endurance sports, like long distance cycling, marathons, iron man, etc.

-BbT

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\
**Post date:** [September 17, 2005, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f1-drivers-most-fit-in-the-world/321795/22 "2005-09-17T23:39:50Z")

</div>

> [@BigBoote66](#):
>
> Yeah, that’s what I meant. I was not intending to imply that merely having a high heart rate produced fitness, but that extraordinary fitness was required to endure the race.
> 
> My actual question seems to have been obscured a bit, which is: Is there any definitive information about the average/max heart rates for F1 drivers, and possibly how does this compare to other endurance sports, like long distance cycling, marathons, iron man, etc.
> 
> -BbT

I don’t know that you’d find that, but my WAG is F-1 drivers, have more to pay attention to, so they are subjected to much more stress than other endurance sports. That could easily drive their rate even higher than say, a cycler. One of the articles I linked to eariler, addressed the psychological stress they endure.  
Soory I misunderstood the original question.  
Sometimes I extrapolate a bit too much :smack:

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/f1-drivers-most-fit-in-the-world/321795.md?page=1)