Hard drive, rain jacket and a Red Bull water bottle: Jonny Edgar’s race weekend essentials

8 August 2022

Rain or shine, Trident’s Jonny Edgar is prepared for anything whatever the weather throws at him during the 2022 Formula 3 season.

The British driver gives us a peak at what some of his must-have items are for every race weekend – and one of them definitely would’ve been very handy in recent rounds!

PHONE CHARGER

“Obviously it’s pretty important all the time, especially nowadays. It’s got everything you need to know, social media and also messaging for the team to know what’s going on and also stuff like the briefing notes we get. Having your phone charged is probably the most important thing for me.

“I’ve got an iPhone – I’ve managed not to forget it on a race weekend yet. I’d say I’ve got quite a bit of screen time. My favourite app is probably Instagram, sometimes if you’re bored you can waste a bit of time on it.”

RED BULL WATER BOTTLE

“I wouldn’t say I use it that much actually because obviously I have quite a few and I have a different one for in the car that has a straw, but this one I keep in my bag all the time for if I ever need it anywhere.

“You need to drink plenty of water, after the race you’re always thirsty. I’d say before you kind of drink a bit more than you want to just to stay hydrated before the race.”

RAIN JACKET

“I take it everywhere because even with the forecast, sometimes you never know if it will rain. It’s useful to have and bring to every race just in case I need it on a track walk or walking in and out of the track.

“I quite like it when it's wet. Qualifying and Practice are a bit more enjoyable in the wet because you can get space, whereas sometimes in the race you can't really see anything. When it’s too wet and you can’t see anything it’s difficult because you struggle to drive properly – sometimes you genuinely can’t see where you’re at.

“When you’re racing you don’t notice too much when it’s wet, sometimes maybe a little bit cold but it’s more if there’s a red flag like in Spa last year, you get cold because the seat is wet. When you finish the race, obviously it’s not nice when the suit’s wet but you get changed fairly quickly to get out of it!”

HARD DRIVE

“I’ve got my hard drive with all the onboards and off boards for all of the racetracks, which the team give to me to watch the old races and Qualifying sessions to kind of see which lines people do. Also, to watch a race start – you can look where it’s good to go and where it’s not good to go and kind of learn from mistakes people made in the past I suppose.

“It’s pretty important for working out the driving line, but I think you can figure that out on the simulator. I’d say it’s more so for watching the race starts, sometimes you see a pattern at certain corners you watch and if you were trying to go around the outside, you might notice that it works out quite a lot of the time or other times you see some corners where 90% of the time the driver ends up losing it, ends up in the gravel or going off and losing more places.

“You kind of have a good idea where to put yourself on the first lap. Obviously, you can’t follow it completely because every situation is different but you have an idea sometimes of where not to put yourself, where it’s really risky, just seeing where the overtaking places are and how to set up the overtake.

“Also, from that alone, you can pick up that someone might try a different line to see if it works or if it doesn’t so you can have a decent idea going into Practice of where you need to be.”

EXERCISE BAND

“It’s just for warming up for the races, especially when you’re out in the morning it’s more to kind of wake yourself up. I don’t think it’s much of a physical benefit because you have to do it so far beforehand, but I think it’s more about getting your body woken up and I’d say that’s the biggest thing for me.

“I don’t really have a set routine. I don’t do loads of warming up really, just a little bit, enough to wake myself up.”