Car Ergonomics and Posture

The Importance of Proper Ergonomics

Once I had an opportunity to test a Mercedes AMG GT4 at Sebring. On the first session, the team had not prepared a seat for me, so I had to go with what was available. And I was sitting very low. Within 10 minutes of driving, I had neck pain, shoulder pain, and I honestly don't even remember having any fun or good performance or even learning experience on that session. I don't remember what exactly I worked on on that session because I couldn't even focus properly.

If you're not comfortable while driving, you can't go fast. You will hurt yourself, you will feel pain, and you're going to think about all these tiny problems instead of focusing on your technique and your driving.

Defining Perfect Posture

A perfect posture is one that minimizes tension and maximizes precision, and that allows you to stay fully connected to the car while being as relaxed as possible, using only the essential muscles to operate the pedals in the steering with the least effort and energy possible. Any unnecessary tension creates discomfort and drains your focus and energy.

A race car seat and belts are supposed to make your lower back and bottom tight enough so that it rotates and moves with the car. If you achieve that, then you're able to feel the movements of the car as if the car is your body. Feeling at one with the car also has a physical meaning, where your mind is so connected to the movements that your brain even thinks that you are the rear tires, that you are the front tires.

The Relaxation Test

Your seating position should be comfortable enough that you're able to sleep in the car with all your muscles fully relaxed. Then, when driving, the only muscles you will need to use for a given input are the essential ones. For example, when braking, everything but your left leg should be relaxed, especially your shoulders, arms, and hands, the upper body.

The most common mistake in beginners is to tense up the upper body, gripping the steering wheel too hard while braking. This is bad because you feel less of what's happening with the car and you actually prevent the steering wheel from making its own micro corrections and adjustments to bumps on track. If you're not comfortable and tight enough that you end up having to hold on to the steering while braking, you need to change something to fix it, most likely tightening the belts more.

Pedal Position and Distance

Set your pedal distance so that your feet can be fully relaxed while inactive. Meaning, while on power, you should be able to rest your foot on the brakes without activating it. If you're sitting too close to the pedals in a way that your left foot is pressing the brake pedal while in a resting position, you will have to actively think about lifting your foot constantly, activating muscles that it shouldn't ever need to activate, which will consume your focus and energy during a long session.

For braking, you only need to use the muscles to press the pedal down. You should never actively lift your pedal for anything. The pedal should release itself. This way, when you're on the straights, you don't have to think about your left foot and you can recover before your next braking zone.

The same applies to throttle. You should be able to relax your right foot on top of the throttle without pressing it or without ever thinking about constantly lifting your foot to not accidentally accelerate. This way, when you're braking into a corner, you can fully focus on the deceleration and on the balance of the car without consuming your limited focus with inactive pedals.

Steering Wheel Distance and Height

Distance

Set your steering wheel distance close enough so that you don't have to worry about reaching for it and stretching your arms too much. You need to be able to hold the steering lightly without gripping it too hard with your hands and thumbs. If the steering is too far away, you will put more strain on your shoulders. If it's too close to you, you will put more strain on your wrists. Find a point in between so that you don't overload any single group of muscles.

Height

Height-wise, the steering should be just slightly under your shoulders level. If it's too high, you will feel like you're hanging on your steering wheel, putting too much strain on your shoulders, your neck, because it will also most likely have to peak up to look at the track and your thumbs.

Seat Height

For racing drivers, the higher we sit on a race car, the better since you get a more comfortable vision of the track. The bare minimum height is the one that won't require you to peak up with your head to look at the track. If you're sitting too low, having to lift your head to drive will completely destroy your focus and performance. You can adjust the seat height to fix both the steering height issues and the head lifting issues.

Seat Fit and Shoulder Position

When it comes to your seat, make sure you're able to fully relax your shoulders without having to lift them. If the seat is too tight literally on your upper body, you can't fully relax your shoulders and this becomes a painful experience with just a few laps.

Here's a good way to emulate how it should feel when this is right. If you breathe in and exhale, slowly, the relaxation that comes with the air coming out of your lungs and the shoulders moving down slightly should be your physical reference of how it should feel when you're driving.

The bottom should be the tightest part of your seat bucket so that every movement of the car is immediately transferred to you with zero delay, so you can feel what's happening with the car in real time without being moved around.

Race Car Belts

Race car belts always get looser when you start driving. So make sure you're extra tight before you get on track, even if it feels like it's too tight at first, which may feel uncomfortable if you're trying to breathe by lifting your shoulders. Remember that the ideal way to breathe is by inflating your belly, not your upper part of your chest and shoulders.

Tighten your lower belts first and your upper belts after. When tightening the upper belts on top of your hands, make sure that you push your head backwards against the seat to slide the hands up a little bit so that it doesn't pull your head and shoulders down forward when your belts are fully tight.

Helmet Fit

Make sure your helmet is tight enough so that it doesn't shake around when you shake your head. This is very important because fast head movements will happen, especially when you're racing, and this rebound movement from the helmet might be uncomfortable and take away your focus.

Final Considerations

Listen, all this is more important than you think. All this is more important than your team thinks. So be annoying and perfectionist when it comes to feeling extremely comfortable with the car before you get on track because this can be worth seconds per lap. And no coach out there is going to relate your performance on track looking at the data with how comfortable you were feeling when you were driving.