This weekend saw Kimi Antonelli reveal quite a major flaw in the much discussed safety cooling vests that have been deployed for the drivers in F1 this year.
His vest broke during FP1 and was … heating him up in his Mercedes! Speaking to F1 TV after finishing 11th in sprint qualifying, Antonelli was pressed on the issues:
💬 “I struggled a bit in the car because I had a few physical issues. But the car felt good …
“I was wearing the cooling vest and we had a failure in the cooling, so instead of cooling it was warming me up. So, I had a big struggle in the session.”
This is the second race in a row where the temperatures have been above the 87.8F (31C) threshold that means the FIA declares a ‘heat hazard’ race and the teams are obliged to fit cooling devices — or added weight if the drivers don’t want to wear the cooling shirt. It is scorching at Austin this weekend.
But not all of them like the shirt. The pipes sit uncomfortably against their skin and bones, which is not ideal at high speed, and the kit is very complicated to fit into a tight F1 cockpit with many long pipes needing to be crammed in.
Still, no one predicted the device would actually heat up a driver if it fails.
More research is necessary, it seems — and urgently so, given cooling tech will be fitted as standard on every F1 car from 2026.