Fit to race

Like every other team, MF1 Racing has a large staff dedicated to making the car go faster, but just as important is the guy behind the scenes who works on the drivers. If a driver isn’t fully fit, or has a specific problem that needs attention, then he can’t give his best behind the wheel. And that shows up on the stop watch – maybe not always over one lap, but certainly over a full race distance.

MF1 physiotherapist Alex Leibinger has the job of looking after the team’s drivers, including the Friday testers. He has to make sure they’re always in tip-top condition, and his value came sharply into focus earlier in the season when Tiago Monteiro had an unexpected back problem. Alex helped to get him safely through the Malaysian GP weekend.

“I’ve been working with Alex since December,” says Monteiro. “He didn’t know much about F1 when he came in, but it’s good to work with someone who’s from outside this world. He had to learn about the physical needs of an F1 driver, but now he understands it, and he’s adapted well. He knows the human body really well.

“We get on well, he takes good care of me, and we train hard. We travel a lot together, we eat a lot together, so we talk about a lot of things, not just racing. It’s very important that we get along, and when I’m travelling without a manager or sponsors or anything, it’s just me and him. He’s good company.”

Leibinger came into the sport almost by chance, through a fortuitous contact with MF1 Managing Director Colin Kolles. But he has an impressive background in other sports.

“A mutual friend introduced me to Colin’s wife,” says the German. “And she asked if she could come to my practice for treatment and training. After a few months, she asked me if I wanted to get involved with the F1 team, and I said yes, of course!

“Previously, I’ve worked with professional women tennis players, and professional women golfers – always women! And I was a professional tri-athlete for 12 years. I was in the top 20 in Europe over the shorter distance events.”

Coming into F1 with no previous motorsports experience, Leibinger’s first job was to find out in what areas a racing driver needed to be strong.

“Before I was involved, I always wondered what a driver needed, but now I know that it’s much more of a sport than I thought. They need to work on endurance and on cardio. It’s very important to help bring the stress levels down. I’ve met some drivers from other teams and gone running with them, and I think a lot of drivers don’t have a really good level of endurance, and they could be much better. They also need a lot of co-ordination training, and boxing is really good for that. Anyone can do it; it’s easy to learn, although at the beginning it’s difficult for a driver to get into it!”

Monteiro is happy to follow the regime Leibinger prescribes for him: “The neck, shoulders and back are the main things. Cardio-wise, we run a lot, and do a bit of swimming. We also do a lot of boxing training for co-ordination and reflexes. It’s such a good cardio exercise, as well. It’s very tough! Alex likes cycling, but it’s difficult to carry bikes around, and we need a lot more time to do it properly. For example, 45 minutes of running is equivalent to two hours cycling. Of course, when I’m at home I have more time, I do it. But it’s not that easy when we travel.”

Most of the work is done away from the track, but there is a regular routine as race weekends approach.

“For overseas races, we’ll start on Tuesday,” says Leibinger, “And then on Wednesday and Thursday, we do cardio training and co-ordination training, maybe weights. Then it stops for the race weekend, but we’ll do massages every day just to maintain good circulation.”

Leibinger says that Monteiro’s problem in Malaysia required extra-special attention: “It was difficult at the beginning. The biggest problem for him was a mental one, because it came up Friday night, close to qualifying. By Saturday it was better, and by Sunday, it was almost gone. I work using special Chinese osteopathic medicine, acupuncture and so on, which helped reduce the time he needed to heal.”

Of course, it’s not just about the body, but the mind, as well. A keen sportsman himself, Leibinger has a good idea of what makes a driver tick, and he understands the right mental approach.

“He doesn’t push me too much on that (mental) side,” says Tiago. “But he definitely works on it. He’s quite clever because the way he does it, he doesn’t put too much obvious emphasis on that, but it works quite well. Everything is psychological, so the way you deal with things in your mind can change your performance a lot.”

Leibinger still operates his own practice in Munich, but he’s enjoying his new life as part of a Grand Prix team: “I like it here. At the beginning I was not sure, because there’s a lot of travelling, and I wasn’t sure how it would work. From one day to the next, you’re very close with the drivers, and you can be together the whole day, so it’s not easy. They are in a team, but not really team people, so it was difficult to know what they’re really like. But it’s good to get to know them when they’re more relaxed.”