Robert Shwartzman’s racing essentials: A watch, gloves and intelligent jewellery

Robert Shwartzman joins us for an in-depth look at his race weekend essentials. From iPads and AirPods to helmets and hats and much more, we find out what he can’t travel without.

The PREMA driver discusses an unusual ring, his versatile driving gloves and his new watch…

RING

“This is interesting, as it is not just a normal ring. It is actually a specialised ring for athletes, as it has sensors on the inside. The sensors can give you information via an app on your phone on your heart rate, how your sleep was, how long your sleep was, whether you were dreaming and at what stages. It can also tell you whether you were having a deep sleep or a light sleep. All of those statistics, which are useful for an athlete.”

WARM UP BALL

“Every time you shoot this ball, it will go in a random direction and you need to be very quick to react and catch it. It is for my reactions and my coach uses this type of ball to give me a proper warm-up.”

WATCH

“This was new for this year, from the Red Bull Ring. It is not really useful in terms of a warm-up or anything to help with your performance. In my opinion, it is something that kind of shows your status, in a way. The watch is generally very useful, of course, because you can see the time on it, so you can be on time for meetings, for Free Practice, for Qualifying - that is very important.

“For the very important things, I am always on time... For some things I may think 'ahhh, you can be a bit late, haha!’ No, in seriousness, I am usually good and if I am sometimes late, it is because something important was actually happening, not because I was sleeping or anything like that.”

DRINKS BOTTLE

“The drinks bottle is very useful on the racing grid. The race is an hour long, so we need to make sure we drink plenty of water and have plenty of energy by staying hydrated. Most racing drivers have these types of bottles with the long pipe to come through the helmet.”

GLOVES

“The final part, and this is important for any racing driver - although most will know this - is the gloves. These are special fireproof gloves, super light, super comfortable.

“Not many of you know this, but in Russia, in my normal road car, I also use gloves. This keeps the steering wheel from getting dirty and it also gives me more grip. I took my old gloves from racing back to Russia and I have them in the glove compartment and use proper racing driver gloves in my road car. They are the 2018 gloves.”