No, F1 drivers do not listen to music during a race. Instead, they concentrate on receiving radio information from their team.
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Do F1 Drivers Listen To Music?
Here are some F1 drivers report what and when they listen to music:
- Alonso listens to Mozart on the way to the pit lane, but he never listens to music while driving: “I like listening to classical music on the way up to the paddock – not on the way back though, as I’m too tired. Wolfgang Amadeus is a genius – there’s no arguing with that – and it’s good to play his music before an important session, but I prefer listening to something more energetic on the way back: rock or dance music.”
- “As soon as he started driving, Michael Schumacher always listened to hard rock music. That’s what everyone was playing at that time and it helped him find his focus. “I don’t have a musical routine before getting in the car because it’s possible that over time you get more and more picky about whether or not you like a song”
- Lewis Hamilton, race winner. “I don’t have music on in the car. It’s not that I don’t like music but while you are racing for two hours your mind cannot be somewhere else or doing something else, even for one minute.”
- Sebastian Vettel, 4x F1 world champion. “Before the race, I have no music on in the car. I just try to stay as focused as possible, without being too tense.”
- Mark Webber, 9x Grand Prix winner. “I usually don’t listen to music before a race, because it could be a distraction. I listen to my team and the race director in the car, but that’s fine in order to keep focused.”
- Nico Rosberg, F1 driver in the Mercedes AMG Petronas racing team and winner of 1 Grand Prix. “As much as it would be cool to have music playing when I’m racing, I actually prefer not to have any kind of distraction from the real world when I get in the car. It’s part of my routine and there are a number of reasons why.”
F1 drivers radio communication with their team
There are various ways by which racing teams communicate with their drivers during the course of the race, but the main thing being passed on is updated information about how competitive or otherwise, each driver’s or car’s rivals are running at that point in time.
In order to work out what’s going on during a race, they have a lot of information to deal with – all the time the racers are trying to stay ahead and beat their rivals by as big an advantage as possible.
Each F1 driver has a dedicated team race engineer, and during the race, he provides the drivers various kinds of information:
- Race strategy instructions
- Crucial race decisions
- Team orders
- Safety
Can F1 drivers hear each other’s radio?
Absolutely not. F1 drivers have no communication with other drivers, and no communication between themselves either as it would be distracting.
They have their own race engineer, who will talk to the driver only when necessary during a race.
Formula 1 communications system & language
| Slang | Meaning |
|---|---|
| MARBLES | Small pieces of rubber that are shredded from the tyres during cornering |
| BOTTOMING | When the underside of the car hits the track |
| BLISTERING/GRAINING | The tyres have holes in the middle section. |
| FLAT SPOT | Driver locks his front brakes |
| LIFT AND COAST | Driver lifts off the throttle and cruises into a braking zone |
| DRS | Drag reduction system where the back wing opens and increases the car’s speed |
| BOX | Enter to pitstop. Box comes from the German Boxenstopp, meaning pit stop. |
| TANKSLAPPER | A sideways moment for a driver where the back end of the car steps out |
