How Do F1 Drivers Pee?

Yes, F1 drivers are allowed to urinate in the car, and are told to go rather than hold it if they genuinely need to, but most say they never actually face that choice during a race. No, they do not wear nappies or any other absorbent garment under the suit.

• F1 drivers are permitted to urinate in the car during a race and are told to do so rather than hold it, but on-record answers from current and recent drivers suggest most never actually need to.
• Drivers do not wear diapers. What sits under the suit is mandatory fireproof underwear, an FIA-required layer of fire-resistant long johns, briefs and socks, with no absorbent garment involved.
• Real, sourced answers split roughly down the middle: Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo have each said, separately, that they have never gone during a race, while Sergio Perez has said on camera that he has.

How Do F1 Drivers Pee During A Race?

There is no dedicated system for it. If a driver genuinely needs to go mid-race, the only option is to do it in the suit, and both drivers and teams treat that as a last resort rather than a routine part of the plan. Two things push most drivers away from ever reaching that point. The first is preparation: drivers time their fluid intake in the hours before a race specifically so the urge does not arrive mid-session, using the pit lane facilities on the way to the grid rather than leaving anything to chance once they are strapped in. The second is the car itself, which sweats the problem out of them before it becomes one, cockpit temperatures well above 50 degrees Celsius mean a driver is losing fluid as sweat for most of a race rather than accumulating anything that needs to come out the other way.

Do F1 Drivers Wear Diapers?

No. What a driver actually wears under the suit is a mandatory layer of fireproof underwear, long-sleeve top and bottoms plus fire-resistant socks and briefs, confirmed by Red Bull Racing’s own team kit lead, who describes it as effectively long johns worn beneath the outer suit for fire protection rather than for any other purpose. A diaper would work against everything that layer is designed to do. Trapped against the skin in a cockpit running past 50 degrees Celsius for up to two hours, it would hold heat and moisture rather than let either escape, the opposite of what a driver needs in conditions already pushing the edge of heat tolerance. A damp race suit, by contrast, dries out fast in that same heat, helped by whatever airflow reaches an open cockpit, which is the practical reason drivers who do go in the suit are dealing with a short-term problem rather than an hours-long one.

Why Do Most Drivers Never Need To Go?

Fluid loss, not bladder control, is the real explanation. Drivers typically lose 2 to 3 kilograms in sweat during a Grand Prix, with taller drivers losing as much as 4 kilograms, according to Yahoo Sports’ reporting on driver preparation. Teams weigh each driver before and after a race specifically to track that fluid loss against the FIA’s minimum weight regulations, and the numbers involved leave the body with very little spare fluid left to need releasing by the finish. Singapore is the clearest example: tropical heat and humidity on top of one of the calendar’s longest race durations push fluid loss toward the top of that range more reliably than anywhere else F1 races, which is exactly the kind of race where the question of needing to go mid-race is least likely to come up at all.

How Long Are Drivers Strapped In?

Longer than the race itself, in every case. Red Bull Racing’s own mechanic Ole Schack has described belting a driver into the car eight to ten minutes before the start, well before the formation lap even begins, and that time only grows from there if a race gets delayed on the grid. Once running, a Grand Prix is capped at two hours of green-flag time, but a red flag can stretch the total event to three hours before officials step in. The outer edge of that problem is the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix, which ran four hours and four minutes from lights out to chequered flag after rain suspended the race for over two hours, confirmed independently via a BBC report on the same race. Jenson Button won it after six pit stops, and every driver who started that race spent the best part of a working shift strapped into a cockpit built for two hours, not four.

Which Drivers Have Actually Done It?

The honest answer requires naming names carefully, and the verified list is short rather than sensational. Lewis Hamilton has said plainly that he never has: “You’re supposed to go in your suit. But, I can’t do it. I’ve never done it, but, there are drivers that do.” Daniel Ricciardo has said the same, in almost the same words, describing what holding on actually feels like: “I’ve never done it. If you have to go, you just painfully hold on until the end, but every bump, every little kerb you hit hurts.” Sergio Perez has admitted the opposite on camera, saying simply “I’ve done it before,” while Max Verstappen has said he tried but could not go through with it.

One more claim about this circulates constantly and deserves an honest label rather than a confident one. Hamilton has also said his former Mercedes mechanics told him Michael Schumacher urinated in the car every race, but that is secondhand information passed on by Hamilton, not a claim Schumacher himself is on record making, and it should be read as paddock legend rather than a verified admission.

Sources

• Dan Ricciardo’s awkward TV moment with Ellen DeGeneres – Yahoo Finance
• Cooling Vests and Fireproof Underwear! 10 Surprising Uniform Rules Formula 1 Drivers Must Follow – AOL
• Bulls’ Guide To: Formula One Race Start – Red Bull Racing
• Why F1 drivers lose more weight at Singapore GP than any other race – Yahoo Sports

Article reviewed and updated by Jack Renn, August 2026.

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Written by

Jarrod Partridge

Jarrod Partridge is the Co-Founder of F1 Chronicle and an FIA accredited journalist with over 30 years of experience following Formula 1. A member of the AIPS International Sports Press Association, Jarrod has covered F1 races at circuits around the world, bringing first-hand insight to every race report, driver profile, and technical analysis he writes.

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