You may think that physical fitness is only a minor concern for race car drivers, but they need to handle high G-forces while precisely controlling a speeding car and quickly reacting to other drivers.
That requires a lot of strength and endurance, and drivers’ heart rates are often about as high as a marathon runner during the entire race.
A new system from French auto-maker Renault Sport Technologies and Seattle-based smart garment maker Sensoria will provide precise data to track a driver’s health.
The system includes a smart shirt made by Sensoria with a built-in heart rate tracker and an app, R.S. Monitor, that displays the data alongside other important racing information.
R.S. Monitor, available for iOS and Android, tracks lap times and vehicle performance.
When paired with Sensoria’s special edition Renault Sport shirt, it will track a driver’s heart rate next to the G-G diagram, which gives vital information about the car’s performance.
The shirt is just one of Sensoria’s many health-focused tracking products. The company used Kickstarter to launch some step-tracking socks in 2013 and has expanded to heart rate-monitoring shirts and sports bras.
Company co-founder Davide Vigano — a former Microsoft employee — pitched his smart-sock business concept last year during the Inventions We Love segment at the 2014 GeekWire Summit.
Sensoria raised $5 million in series A financing last year.
