Engineers and the technical department of the Subaru World Rally Team spend countless hours fine-tuning the performance of each Impreza World Rally Car, searching for every last drop of performance in a sport that is measured in tenths of a second.
But the car is only one element in the quest for speed, and just as critical to its performance is the ability of those two who are strapped in to each car at the beginning of every rally; the driver and co-driver. The human element.
Just as each Impreza WRC2008 regularly undergoes diagnostic tests to ensure that its systems are running and functioning correctly, so too do the drivers. Only rather than being termed a diagnostic, it takes the form of a medical and physiological assessment.
At the end of November Petter Solberg and Phil Mills visited the Bupa Wellness service within Spire Cardiff Hospital for a Key Health Assessment.
Petter and Phil outside Spire Cardiff Hospital - Photo: SWRT
The assessment provides a health baseline. The results provide a picture of each driver’s health level and help determine which key behaviours need to be established to improve their well-being, thereby reducing illness and the risk of disease.
Of course, it also plays another key role in enhancing the performance of each driver. “The medical assessment is a key part of our driver performance programme, providing us with an in-depth appraisal of the drivers’ medical and physiological status” said John Mills, the team’s Performance Trainer. “The assessments help to highlight any potential health or injury concerns our drivers may have and enable our human performance department to set performance targets for the forthcoming season.”
The medical assessment is like having a rally car scrutineered. Before you can enter the rally and push it to the limit, you must be assured that it is safe to do so and no crucial component is likely to fail.
As motorsport athletes, the drivers put their bodies through extremes, both whilst on rallies and when training. It is essential therefore that the starting point of their tailored fitness programme is to understand each driver’s current performance-limiting factors.
“Now that Petter and Phil have successfully completed their health assessments, we can continue to push them with their 2009 training programmes in a way that will minimise any chance of injury” continued John Mills. “We will continue to implement a strategy of effective training and coaching of the drivers alongside proactive medical support to allow them to achieve performance excellence. For us, this means achieving optimal speed and consistency in the car and having the focus to minimise errors, thereby complementing the efforts of the engineers to maximise overall performance.”
