Oscar Piastri admits it's definitely "not for pleasure" but the McLaren ace swears by his 'bathroom sauna' method of acclimatising for what's set to be a torridly hot Austrian Grand Prix.
F1 chiefs have declared Sunday's race at Spielberg, taking place amid a European heatwave, fits their 'health hazard' criteria, with temperatures topping 31C forecast and teams required to fit a driver cooling system, like a liquid-cooled vest.
Though drivers can take a ballast penalty instead, Piastri shrugged on Thursday: "I think probably, yes, I will wear it. I used it a couple of times last year. There's obviously the risk if it goes wrong and if it fails, then it's worse than not wearing it.
It is well hot. Might be too hot... đĄïžđ„” #F1 #AustrianGP pic.twitter.com/FS3OqcJoMA
â Formula 1 (@F1) June 25, 2026
"But if you get the system working well, then it can help a bit. It's not a complete game-changer but when I used it last year, it was okay. There are definitely some things not perfect with it, but it's personal preference."
The 25-year-old Melburnian did reveal, however, when asked if he'd been preparing for Sunday's potential ordeal in a sauna, that he had his own method of preparing for a scorcher of a race.
"When you've got no air coming in, that's when it's the worst. I haven't spent any time in a sauna, but I've got a few portable heaters and a small bathroom and an exercise bike.
"You can cause yourself a lot of discomfort, a lot of pain by doing that. So I do that for the benefit of my performance -- not for pleasure, that's for sure," he explained.
One thing's for sure, though. World champions McLaren haven't been hot stuff on the track this season.
"It has been a good track for us in the past, but there's no illusion for us that we're suddenly going to be amazing here and the team to beat," said Piastri. "We're definitely not going to be.
"Everybody's coming with upgrades quickly. Ferrari took a good step forward in Barcelona, Mercedes is still the benchmark, and I'm hearing along the grapevine that Red Bull have got some big things as well. So, it's not going to be easy for us."
Piastri, who's still playing catch-up after being unable to start the first two races, is lying sixth in the championship race he was leading this time last year. Teammate, world champion Lando Norris, is five points ahead of him in fifth.
"We have a bit of a deficit everywhere. We don't really have any clear strengths where we're really strong, but we're not terribly bad anywhere either. So in some ways that's good, in some ways that's bad," mused Piastri.
"The odds are definitely stacked against us, but last year was a pretty good showcase of how quickly things can change. We've still got a long way to go in the season.
"I don't think we should count ourselves out. Yes, we've got to do a lot of hard work, yes, we'll need a few things to go our way. But we've seen reliability issues for everybody across the board and things can change very quickly.
"If we can improve things dramatically like we have done in the last few seasons, then I think anything is still possible."
