Everyone involved in motor sport tends to focus on the machinery. The cars. The nuts and bolts, and how they go together will inevitably be at the forefront of the vast majority of conversations taking place in the paddock and hotel bars in the week leading up to the race. We usually overlook one of the most important factors behind a good result in any motor race: the drivers. And in particular the fitness and preparation of the human element before and during the event.

Mental preparation, ‘getting your head right,’ and ‘getting in the zone’ are a vitally important part of any race weekend. A lot of drivers I've worked with had their own personal methods of getting themselves ready for their stint behind the wheel. 

One of the most common methods of mental preparation is visualisation. We often see drivers lined up on the starting grid, eyes closed moving their head from side-to-side, visualising driving their car around the lap. We see drivers waiting patiently for their team mate to bring their car into the pits for them to takeover behind the wheel. We see all sorts of behavior, from stretching and visualising, to jumping up and down. The jumping up and down is especially popular if its cold!

I doubt the cold will be a factor in Cataluyna this weekend though. In fact, the complete opposite will undoubtedly be the case, and managing the high temperatures will be one of the major considerations of driver preparations going into race week. Hydration, and indeed re-hydration, will be the order of the day.

It’s vital for drivers to stay hydrated during the race. The physicality of driving the car raises the body temperature considerably. Add in fireproof suits, helmets, closed cockpits and heat radiation from the engine, and they all combine to make the situation much worse than in other sports. In extreme situations, drivers can lose up to one litre of fluid per hour. Most drivers don't need laboratory conditions to monitor their rate of re-hydration, they simply look for the colour of their urine. Clear-coloured is the target to achieve, indicating that you are well hydrated.

And on that cheery note, we wish all of our drivers the best of luck in this year’s event. Here is to clear coloured urine for everyone! 

Located in the Montmeló, the Circuit de Barcelona-Cataluyna was inaugurated on 10 September 1991. It was a project driven by the Catalan government, the Royal Automobile Club of Catalonia and the Montmeló town council. The circuit hosted its first race only five days after the inauguration – a round of the Spanish Touring Car Championship – while the first Formula 1 Grand Prix was staged a few weeks later. The first running of the 24-hour event here was for touring cars, although, 27 years later, it has now become a stalwart race for the GT community.

A brief reminder of last year’s event saw 725 laps completed across 24 hours by the IMSA LS Group Performance Porsche. It finished 1min and 37 seconds ahead of the Haas RT Audi, which in turn was two laps ahead of the Herberth Motorsport Porsche. A gap of just over 97 seconds over the course of 24 hours is what we would consider a close finish. 

Given that a laptime of two minutes and three seconds was achieved in qualifying trim last year, 96 seconds can disappear in several blinks of an eye.