
Propped up on the couch, watching a field of Formula One drivers racing each other on any given track in the world and the average viewer would be hard-pressed to fully conceive of how much is really going on.
But a useful guide is to take a virtual "tour" of the multiple controls on an F1 steering wheel, which is not really a wheel at all but a set of grips.
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Each one is individualised for the driver and there are as many as 25 buttons, dials and rotary controls on a Formula One steering interface each requiring a cognitive decision, sometimes at speeds of more than 330km/h.
It's massively complicated. Thank goodness there's just two pedals.
Imagine, too, if something wholly unexpected happens, as occurred when something as simple as another driver's plastic visor strip gets snagged on one of the tiny aerials protruding from the car, as happened to reigning Formula One world champion Max Verstappen, in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this year.
Belted tightly into his seat, his physical wrestle to remove it, without crashing the car, is well worth watching.

During the recent Monaco Formula One Grand Prix, for instance, each of the finishing drivers made more than 3600 gearchanges. Fortunately they don't need to clutch-start (which is via another finger-trigger on the wheel) except from a standstill such as off the start line and when leaving the pits.
Changing gear is via a semi-automatic sequential transmission, with a small paddle on the underside of the steering wheel to shift up, and another on the opposite side to shift down.
Unlike a conventional modern passenger car, there is no anti-lock braking in a Formula One car. Knowing the exact point at a corner at which to brake, and by how much - without locking a wheel - is essential to a fast lap time.
Then at every corner there's what's known as phasing - moving the focus from the braking to the chosen "line" through the corner, and the throttle input - and perhaps another steering wheel input tweak to the differential to even complicate it further - for the all-important exit. This process is repeated at each corner, time after time.
"Busy" doesn't begin to describe it. The amount of situational information to be processed is mind-boggling.
There are very few "breathing spaces" for the driver. These are on the straight sections of the track but even then, with the drag reduction system now in use, this is where drivers tend to focus an overtaking effort when they close within one second of the car in front.
A 2019 study by three UK researchers identified five key stresses that Formula One drivers face: motion, temperature, G-forces, vibration and muscular effort, and their technology interfaces, primarily the complexity of the steering wheel. Oh, and that nagging voice in an earpiece, urging the driver to "push, push!".
The researchers found that the primary concentration effort of an F1 race driver was absorbed with the "concentration to maintain control close to the limit of adhesion whilst simultaneously interacting with competitors". Then added a dozen or more complexities.
In 2014, a group of 11 Italian researchers in one of the most in-depth comparisons of cognitive age-matched behaviour between professional drivers and "standard" drivers", found that racing drivers "showed more consistent recruitment of brain areas devoted to motor control and spatial navigation".
The authors concluded that "exceptional driving abilities may acquire the acquisition of a specific behavioral and functional motor repertoire that is different from the one associated with common everyday driving".
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"Relative to non-experienced drivers, professional drivers showed a more consistent recruitment of motor control and spatial navigation devoted areas, including premotor/motor cortex, striatum, anterior, and posterior cingulate cortex and retrosplenial cortex, precuneus, middle temporal cortex, and parahippocampus," the study found.
Even specific areas of the racer's brains, such as the retrosplenial cortex, had increased density.
So next time you reach for another potato chip and criticise that slowest driver in a Formula One race, just remember: he's still way ahead of you.
Peter Brewer
Telling the truth and holding agencies accountable must matter to us all. It's also important to tell the story well, and factually. Contact me at peter.brewer@canberratimes.com.au
Telling the truth and holding agencies accountable must matter to us all. It's also important to tell the story well, and factually. Contact me at peter.brewer@canberratimes.com.au