Motorsport in the time of global warming: After multiple drivers and fans suffered a heatstroke at Motegi, it started a discussion on how to cope with Japan’s scorching summer heat. What is currently being done and could possibly be done in the future.
The finish line of the men’s triathlon event at the Tokyo Olympics has been described as something like a battlefield, with multiple overheated athletes sprawled on the ground, the trainers rushing to their aid. In the women’s singles tennis quarter-final match, Spain’s Paula Badosa had to leave the court in a wheelchair after being forced to retire due to a heatstroke. Russian tennis player Daniil Medvedev asked an umpire the unsettling question who would take responsibility if he were to die on court after fighting in the gruesome heat, leading the organizers to push the start times for the remaining tennis matches into the afternoon, when the temperatures are starting to cool down a little. Those were all scenes health experts have warned the IOC about, as Japan is known for its scorching and especially humid summer heat. It was also the main reason behind conducting the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics in fall that year.
Motorsports is certainly no stranger to all of this. After all, most championships are being held from spring until fall. The period form July until September is unofficially known as the „summer series“ in SUPER GT and usually consists of three races. It’s a crucial point of the year, with many teams and manufacturers explicitly developing towards performing well in that period. Last month, SUPER GT saw the first leg of said series in Motegi. And while the race that saw the Stanley NSX-GT take the victory in GT500 after a fierce battle with the WedsSport Advan GT-R and the Gainer Tanax GT-R crossing the finish line in first place in GT300, there was one common expression that took center stage that weekend: It’s hot. Hot action on the track. Hot temperatures inside the cars. Hot temperatures on the stands. At one point, the thermometer climbed up to 34°C.
Worrying scenes emerged out of the ARTA garage when GT300 class driver Ren Sato was forced to retire two laps before the end of the race due to suffering a heatstroke after his cool suit broke. He got pulled out of his ARTA NSX GT3 and rushed into the medical center, where he received multiple IV infusions. Thankfully, the 2019 Japanese F4 champion was able to return to his team just a few hours afterwards. Sato wasn’t the only driver who suffered a heatstroke or similar symptoms, as multiple pilots had to get treated after the race. On social media, a few fans reported that they also suffered a heatstroke. Even a Race Queen had to receive medical treatment. 2012 GT300 champion Naoki Yokomizo, who was filling in for CarGuy owner Takeshi Kimura, described his Ferrari 488 GT3 as the hottest race car he’s ever driven, comparing it to a sauna with temperatures that felt like it was 90°C inside. It begs the question: What is currently being done and what could be done in the future to cope with the scorching summer heat and ensure the safety of both the competitors and fans alike?
In a column for Auto Sport web, journalist Ryuji Hirano explained that in recent years, the summer months felt a lot hotter than in the past – probably because of global warming. He compared them to the conditions seen at past flyaway rounds in Malaysia and Thailand, where drivers suffered heatstrokes before. Naoki Yokomizo’s sauna analogy seems appropriate, considering that the pilots are performing with a higher heart rate in closed cars while wearing, just like the mechanics, fireproof suits. At the 2009 Sepang round, Nissan was the first of the three GT500 manufacturers to introduce air conditioning as a countermeasure against the Malaysian heat wave, which is something that got previously neglected due to the increased weight and power loss such a system would entail. Before that, the drivers were only equipped with so-called cool suits, where cold water would flow through pipes into the vest of the wearer. A proven system that’s unfortunately prone to malfunctions if the temperatures are getting too hot.
Since a few years now, the technical GT500 regulations mandate all cars to be equipped with proper air conditioning. It’s a sophisticated system that works differently than in a commercial car with the air flow, at least in Nissan’s case, coming through three different hoses. Four-time GT500 champion Ronnie Quintarelli explained to me that the most important hose is directly connected to a special cover that’s been attached to the helmet (pictured on the left). Another one is at the back of the seat area. Thanks to this system, Quintarelli said that his upper body felt completely OK during the race at Motegi. However, he suffered a lot of heat in the pedal area. „My heels and thus my foot sensitivity were on the limit and I even had some burning pain after I got out of the car.“ Said pain wasn’t entirely new for the NISMO pilot, who had a similar experience during a long run test in Sepang some time ago. „I reported this to the team and we can easily solve it by reducing the air flow in the back of the seat and bringing in a new hose with some fresh air to the pedals area. It should be OK for Suzuka.“
Asked about the topic, Ryo Hirakawa shared Ronnie Quintarelli’s sentiment. „The air conditioning works quite well actually. It’s hot inside the car, but it’s not as bad is it used to be. It for sure is impossible to drive without it, though.“ The Toyota driver and 2017 GT500 champion added that racing in Super Formula in the summer, especially every year in August at Motegi, is much harder. While the open cockpit should provide a bit more fresh air, it also means that the drivers don’t have any protection from the aggressive midsummer sun as the tight fireproof suits are less breathable in direct sunlight. After the pandemic caused massive schedule changes, last year’s Super Formula season kicked off at Motegi in August. Due to the travel restrictions, B-Max hired Super Formula Lights driver Teppei Natori to fill in for Sergio Sette Camara. It meant that Natori was on a challenging double duty, having to jump between two different cars and without any rest or prior practice to compete in the scorching heat that weekend. It was too much too handle for the young driver, who suffered a heatstroke after the Super Formula qualifying, causing B-Max to withdraw the car and letting Natori focus on his Super Formula Lights duties.
Honda driver Bertrand Baguette, who won this year’s Fuji 500km with teammate Koudai Tsukakoshi, also explained that the NSX-GT’s air conditioner works quite well. „Of course, it’s really hot inside the car, but I’m sure the other guys, especially in GT300, are suffering much more than us.“ Unlike SUPER GT’s premier class, the „sanbyaku“ category sees three almost entirely different car concepts (GT300, GT300 Mother Chassis and FIA-GT3) competing against each other, which makes it much harder to introduce a more unified system. Therefore, the regulations only recommend the usage of proper air conditioning. If not installed, all cars have to be equipped with a cool suit system – an important change to a couple of years ago, when such a system wasn’t mandatory yet and some teams, most prominently ARTA, decided against it to reduce weight and thus gaining the edge at the Fuji summer round. Quintarelli wants the rule makers to take action: „Since there are still some cars in GT300 running only with cool suits, I can imagine that the situation is not easy for them. My recommendation is that by regulation, they have to introduce air conditioning.“
In fact, air conditioning is used in many GT3 cars these day. However, depending on the model, it may not have been installed yet as an option at the time of purchase or doesn’t work quite as well as the more modern systems, with teams opting for the cool suit solution instead. For the summer rounds, the GT500 and GT300 (MC) teams are allowed to use additional louvers and lips, for example on the engine hood, for heat dissipation. In accordance to the „hands off“ policy of the FIA-GT3 manufacturers, such additions weren’t allowed for said models. However, in a surprising but welcoming move, the GTA now announced that for the rounds at Suzuka, Sportsland SUGO and Autopolis, all GT3 teams may install openings of any size on the driver’s and passenger’s door windows for a better cockpit ventilation as long as they’re not exceeding 15% of the relevant window area. Additionally, an air scoop may be installed on the outer surface of the windows with a maximum protrusion of 50mm.
Ronnie Quintarelli revealed that at the beginning of his career, he suffered a heatstroke, which he described as a terrible experience. Since then, the air conditioning in the GT500 cars has been massively improved. „At that time I wasn’t taking care of details like my physical preparation, nutrition and sports drinks.“ With all GT500 drivers essentially being works pilots, they have the full support by both the teams and manufacturers to perfectly prepare for each championship round, a luxury not all GT300 pilots have, despite the class slowly shifting away from the Pro-Am days of the past. The four-time champion is aware of this problem, so he hopes that the teams will make an effort to help out their pilots more in the future.
With SUPER GT heading to Suzuka next weekend, the series is facing another potentially hot weekend. After the originally for late May dated championship round got postponed to summer, both the GTA and the circuit organizers of Mobilityland discussed moving the start time to avoid the heat, a spokesperson of the GTA confirmed towards me. „This was in regards to not only ensure the safety of the fans but also the drivers due to the rising temperatures of the track surface.“ In the last two years, we’ve seen a surprisingly high amount of tyre failures at Suzuka Circuit, which likely played a role in said discussions.
However, the discussions ultimately reached the conclusion that such measurements should be avoided due to the COVID-19 infection control measurements by Suzuka City and the Mie Prefecture. If the race would take longer than expected, the fans would be required to stay overnight. „However, there is a possibility that this matter will be considered again from next year onwards, when the pandemic comes to an end.“ The circuits are also making various efforts to help the fans coping with the heat: „The spectators are repeatedly reminded via the on-site broadcast system to stay hydrated; some circuits provide areas with multiple dry mist spraying generators.“
Ryuji Hirano reports that there have been various talks among officials and team members alike at Motegi. One of the ideas discussed was the previously mentioned later start time. While a night race in Japan – the Suzuka 1000km used to end under the lights – seems almost impossible for now due to the missing lights at some of the circuits as well as the noise level reduction requirements, a race in the twilight – for example between 4 pm and 6 pm – could be a potential solution. Since sunset is around 7 pm, no floodlights would be required, especially since all SUPER GT cars are equipped with headlights. Holding a race in the evening isn’t without any issues, however. A Sunday evening race would, depending on the location, require the people involved to stay overnight, further increasing the costs, which would be against the current goals set by the GTA.
An idea would be to move the race weekends to Friday-Saturday, with practice being held on Friday, followed by qualifying on Saturday morning and the race later in the evening. Naturally, no running during the day would require an additional entertainment program for the fans, who would still have to endure the heat. Honda pilot Bertrand Baguette would welcome such a change: „It would be nice to change things a little bit and for example do a night race. That was the target in Sepang to avoid the heat but unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to race there yet.“ The pandemic forced the series to cancel the planned Malaysian comeback for 2020. However, the event could resurface in 2023 as SUPER GT is looking into plans to hold a „Winter Series“ in either January or February that year.
Shifting the start time or even changing the basic structure of the race weekends certainly isn’t an easy task as various things have to be considered, one being the TV slot on J SPORTS, the broadcaster of SUPER GT in Japan. In the past, Germany’s DTM once had plans to qualify under the lights at the Lausitzring, but their TV partner at the time opted against it, as it would’ve clashed with the scheduled broadcast of that day’s Tour de France stage. To avoid the heat, Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and the J League already play most of their games in the evening during the summer. There even have been discussions to hold all games of the legendary Summer Koshien tournament, the National High School Baseball Championship, at night. Coping with the scorching summer heat is a topic that will only get more important in the future. A challenge that not only SUPER GT is facing in Japan.
Copyright Photos: GTA, Ronnie Quintarelli