Credits: IMAGO / Newscom World, IMAGO HochZwei

Kansas City Chiefs’ star quarterback Patrick Mahomes was at the Miami GP to meet his investee team Alpine’s drivers and personnel. In an interaction with Pierre Gasly, Mahomes discussed his pre-game rituals and routine and contrasted it with that of F1 drivers. However, similar to F1 drivers, Mahomes revealed how he cannot eat before games.

The Chiefs QB mentioned, “I eat certain same food, same [diet] everything like that. I eat the noodles of spaghetti and then I eat steak”. He cited how he has to force himself to eat and stick to a routine. Mahomes stated the reason, “I can’t eat before games.”.

The 28-year-old also mentioned how he has to eat potatoes in the morning or something similar to keep up with carb intake if the game schedule is deferred. Thereon, Gasly also reacted and agreed to how athletes can’t have food before their games due to the adrenaline.

Mahomes then further mentioned the pressure aspect of his game. He highlighted how once the game starts, they “can’t even think about stuff like that”. Gasly also agreed and cited how athletes have to deal with what comes their way once things get underway.

However, Patrick Mahomes was quite aware of the fact of how hectic an F1 driver’s life is, in term of their schedule. He asked Gasly how they keep up with the hectic nature of races every other week.

The Chiefs QB was in awe and the Alpine driver took it in his stride, knowing that they don’t have a choice, given the sport is expanding rapidly. However, the side effect of this expansion is that drivers and team personnel have to travel a lot with 24 races on the F1 calendar in 2024.

The taxing toll of the 24-race F1 calendar

Fernando Alonso posted an Instagram story about the number of hours he has traveled this season until the Chinese GP. The story details the flight time the Spaniard had traveling to each race weekend from the Bahrain testing weekend.

The total number of hours came out to 153! Alonso had been one of the voices to raise the concern of the additional traveling mileage and its exertion on drivers and team personnel. The 42-year-old is in the twilight of his career and is already pushing the limits of his physical fitness to compete in F1, let alone perform exceptionally as he does.

So, he understands the taxing nature of the mega 24-race calendar, which wasn’t the case once upon a time. About a decade ago, F1 used to have 17 to 18 races in a season, which was quite a reasonable number. However, ever since Liberty Media’s takeover of the sport in 2017-18, the calendar has expanded into new territories in the Middle East and the USA.

Thus, the increased number of venues not only increased travel but also gave less of an off-season for drivers during the winter. Nonetheless, as Gasly cited, they have to take it in their stride and tackle this challenge until they find a resolution to their issues.