Why The Average Human Couldn’t Drive An F1 Car | WIRED

“In order to be a great Formula 1 driver, you need to have the cognitive capabilities of a chess grandmaster, the strength, stamina, and reactions of a fighter, and then you also have to have the endurance of a marathon runner.” Former F1 performance coach Clayton Green breaks down precisely why they average person would be unable to drive a Formula One car—and why the professionals are such unique athletes. *Some minor corrections we wish to highlight:* In error we combined two Belgian Grand Prix collisions, a near-fatal one from 2012 and one from 2022. Lewis Hamilton did experience 45G of force during the 2022 collision with Fernando Alonso, however. We erroneously depict the pit lane entry a few metres early. The correct entry is after the “club”  turn before the start/finish line. We incorrectly state an average human’s reaction speed is 500m/s. This is incorrect as it depicts ‘choice reaction speed’ rather than ‘simple reaction speed’. The average human’s simple r