Saturday Sillies: What if F1 cars had glove boxes? What should go in them?

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Formula 1

Saturday Sillies: What if F1 cars had glove boxes? What should go in them?

Does anyone else think about this kind of thing too?

Chris Deeley

Saturday 10 May 2025 17:00

This is a feature at GPFans that we're calling Rest Week Thought Exercises, which will run every non-F1 race weekend until the end of the season, or we run out of thoughts, or I can't be bothered to do it. The last one was about Ice Age. This one isn't.

Formula 1 manufacturers haven't stopped innovating since the sport became an official world championship 75 years ago, dreaming up things like six-wheeled cars, two-winged cars, and everything in between.

There's one thing that never came into favour though, and that's glove compartments.

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What if history had gone a completely different way, though? What if every F1 car had a glove box, filled with whatever drivers and teams wanted or thought they needed? What would those things be? What should those things be?

How to fix F1, with glove compartments!

For what it's worth, let's say the average glove box is a foot wide, and somewhere around 5-7 inches deep and high. We're going to assume that's about right for this, because otherwise we're going to be throwing crocodiles and stuff in there and that's just going to get silly.

The very first thing that should be in an F1 car's glovebox, the FIA-mandated, Liberty Media-branded, can't-go-on-track-without item, is a little glass jar with a bit of mud and a worm in it.

Why? Why grab 20 innocent worms (or more likely 16 innocent worms and four morally bankrupt ones, real sociopaths – the ratio of good:bad worms is way worse than you'd think) and have them zipping around racetracks at 200mph? Surely this is something that would have Sebastian Vettel up in arms as F1's hippy king?

Pure and simple, this is a safety move. Absolutely nobody on the grid wants to be the guy who went a bit too aggressively into an overtake and committed a double worm homicide. Liam Lawson would treat his Racing Bull so well if there was a chance of him hearing a little tinkle of breaking glass after hitting a white line and backing his car into a wall. Worms. Safety. Next.

Speaking of white lines, F1 drivers should also be allowed to have a little mirror and some [THIS SECTION HAS BEEN REDACTED ON LEGAL ADVICE]

Thirdly, a silly little drink. We've all been told race after race that drivers' on-board water supplies basically get heated up to 'cup of tea' levels well before the end of every race, and that just sounds really unpleasant. It's time for an alternative.

There's no situation that a silly little drink doesn't improve. You're at work, you've got a quiet couple of minutes in a long day and there's a coffee shop next door? Time to nip for a silly little drink. Day off and the weather's lovely? Time to go for a walk to get a silly little drink. Had a couple too many last night? Silly little drink'll fix it. Tired? Silly little drink. Got dumped? Silly little drink.

Let F1 drivers have a silly little drink. It's a human right. And yes, Max, yours can have gin in it.*

(*Do not drink and drive, GPFans does not endorse drinking and driving)

We've got our worm in a jar, we've got our [LEGAL REDACTION], we've got our little can of...let's say iced coffee, and we're running out of space in our hypothetical glovebox. We can have one more essential item. What are we packing in?

Well, assuming (and hoping) we're one day going to stop having the bulletproof F1 cars of the last decade, drivers should carry a little paperback book with them. Nothing too weighty, we don't want to weigh the car down with all 1,100-odd pages of Lord of the Rings plus the appendices, but you need something to flick through while you're on the wrong side of the barrier waiting to be picked up.

The book depends entirely on the driver's preference – romance, thriller, a fascinating and well-reviewed sports book called Forgotten Nations written by a roguishly handsome author (buy now, beat the rush!) or whatever else they fancy. They could all give us little book reports on their favourites at the end of the year. Think about it.

Rest Week Thought Exercises will return after the Spanish Grand Prix in June, when our topic will be...maybe something about music?

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