Oscar Piastri and Esteban Ocon believe FIA\u2019s new cooling vest for 2025 is \u201cnot quite ready to be used\u201d yet, but have praised the governing body for working on a solution to combat heat.<\/p>\n
Following a hot and humid Qatar GP in 2023 which saw then-Williams <\/a>driver Logan Sargeant retire from the race due to a heat stroke, the FIA began investing in new technologies to help drivers cope with extreme conditions.<\/p>\n This has resulted in the introduction of a new cooling vest for 2025, which is made available to drivers whenever the ambient temperature reaches a certain level during a grand prix weekend – reported to be 31C.<\/p>\n The wearable technology uses several metres of tubes which pump cooled fluid around, helping drivers to regulate their body temperature.<\/p>\n However, ahead of the first two Middle East races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the drivers are not quite satisfied with the current version of the vest.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it still has a bit of fine-tuning to go,\u201d said McLaren <\/a>driver Piastri<\/a>. \u201cI think it\u2019s been a good process with the FIA and the manufacturers with the cooling system, and I think it will be a big positive for us.<\/p>\n \u201cBut for me personally, it\u2019s not quite ready to be used. There\u2019s been a lot of good work going on, but I think Sunday, given it\u2019s a night race and it looks a bit cooler, I\u2019m not sure we\u2019ll actually trigger the heat hazard with the FIA anyway.<\/p>\n \u201cSo if you want to use it, it will come with a weight penalty on Sunday. I think there\u2019s still some work to go, but it\u2019s going in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n The new-for-2025 cooling vests are completely optional at the moment, but the FIA will make it mandatory for drivers to wear them in hotter races next year.<\/p>\n Ocon<\/a> explained that not only is the technology in an early stage at the moment, but the cooling vest is so bulky that Haas <\/a>may have to rebuild a new seat so he can fit inside the car.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a very good initiative the FIA has done for us to be able to fix some of the issues we had in Qatar a couple of years ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a good initiative, but unfortunately, I can\u2019t quite use it at the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way the seats are designed and some of the vests\u2014it\u2019s very different to what we are currently using. It\u2019s much more bulky and a lot bigger. We would need to basically redo a complete seat and I\u2019m not even sure that doing that would still be suitable in corners.<\/p>\n \u201cGood initiative, but I think they need a bit more thought behind it, or from our side as well, on how we could accommodate it better. I think this week we\u2019ll be OK.<\/p>\n “Next week [in Jeddah] might be another story. So we might have to use it next week. Let\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n Aston Martin<\/a>\u2019s Lance Stroll<\/a> also echoed the sentiments of Piastri and Ocon, saying the cooling vests are \u201cnot very comfortable\u201d to wear.<\/p>\n \u201cIt still needs some work, that\u2019s the reality,\u201d he said. \u201cDepends how desperate you are to be cool in the car. I think it\u2019s going to come down to that in the really hot races if the product doesn\u2019t improve.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not very comfortable, but yeah, get a few degrees out of it, so we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri and Esteban Ocon believe FIA\u2019s new cooling vest for 2025 is \u201cnot quite ready to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[10620,4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-15552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-cooling","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114328739875982586","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}