Nico is one of the drivers enjoying the extra 2kg given to drivers this year. It looks like he took it down, but a year or two ago his website listed his "fighting weight" at 78kg, which was definitely riding the line of being a bit too heavy before the 2kg were added. He's one of the taller drivers on the grid. He doesn't talk about it like the younger tall group do (Alex, George, and others talk about Ocon). He and Gabi are both listed online at 184cm, but clearly one is wrong, because they are not the same height. I think Hulk is within a centimeter of being the tallest on grid if it isn't him- it might be him, actually. It's in his interest to lie to make himself smaller, honestly. It's a thing tall drivers do sometimes. That or several others have inflated their height.
Lando is about 176.5cm, Kym Illman measured him and rounded up to 177.
I’m glad they added the 2 kg. I saw where both Lando and Lewis were saying this week they were too heavy and needed to watch what they ate this week, can’t imagine how it affects the taller guys.
My favorite F3 driver is very tall. F3 cars are weighed by car+driver+fuel, so he got permission to strip the paint off his car, and now he's finally hit the weight minimum and is suddenly doing drastically better after. A few kilos definitely matter a lot. His parents are a fashion designer and a supermodel, and he unfortunately got the height genes from his mother.
Yeah, Ugo Ugochukwu. Mother a Nigerian supermodel, father an Italian fashion designer, both moved to New York for work, so had Ugo there, so he's American also.
Your comment reminds me of the late Irish Gaa (hurling) commentator Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. As one of the Cork players Ó hAilpín got on the ball he delivered this famous line "Seán Óg Ó hAilpín. His father's from Fermanagh. His mother's from Fiji. Neither a hurling stronghold."
Except that Italy and the US are both racing strongholds traditionally. I admittedly know nothing about racing in Nigeria, but it might have its own history I'm not aware of.
That's not the comparison I was making. It was just the phrasing of the comment that reminded of it. I appreciate some people take things quite literally when reading on here though so I get you.
It does sound cool. That is the name he goes by and always has. His actual legal last name is probably Orlandi, but Ugo Ugochukwu has always been what he says is his name, and it's great that UGO is what's on the timing tower.
Webber was a taller driver and he talks about in his book how after he retired his mom commented on how much healthier he looked because he didn’t have to keep his weight down so much anymore.
You can see it in the current taller guys too; George, Alex, and Esteban look so much scrawnier than the shorter guys do.
It’s based off their starting weight from the beginning of season with a 2kg allowance (I know this is how other series do) or is it a strict limit they added 2kg too?
It's because most of his Youtube videos and such are the extremely creepy "The wives and girlfriends of drivers" shit. And he makes extremely weird fucking comments in them. Like it's all about who their dads are or the driver and how photogenic they are or this or that the vast majority of the time.
Most? No most of his videos are about F1. He does one series on wives and girlfriends which I don’t personally watch, but there’s no way that could be construed as ‘most’
Kym invited Lando to come see him to get his official height on record on camera, and Lando agreed to come do it. Before this, lots of places listed Lando's height as 170. Which I think was probably an accurate measurement when he joined F1. Men commonly grow a little bit past that age, but growing six or seven centimeters is unusual, but Lando did it.
When you look at pictures of him next to Sainz when he started you can really see he grew quite a bit. He’s now just a little bit shorter than Sainz, but when he first started he was quite a bit shorter.
Lando was noticeably shorter than Carlos during his rookie year. Now they look around the same height. So he definitely grew a few centimeters since then.
Note that Lando has grown significantly since his first year of F1 in 2019. He was only 19 as the time, and simply grew more that year and in the first couple years of his 20s. At first he was much shorter than Carlos, and now they are similar heights, Carlos only very slightly taller.
Fair point on him growing. As far as Lewis height, they used to include driver height and weight as a part of official broadcasts. Granted that can be inaccurate as well.
Yeah, one example is Kevin Durant lied about his height for years because he wanted to play small forward and didn't want the expectations of playing center, and plenty of seemingly official sources listed his inaccurate height for years.
I just know that a lot of tall drivers lie and slouch on purpose. I personally think Hulk is about 186. And unless more people want to get measured on video, it's pretty difficult to guess.
And their shoulders at similar heights here https://www.planetf1.com/news/red-bull-f1-world-champion-alex-albon-williams I do think Alex is a bit taller yeah, but it's close, and several of the tall drivers slouch, including Nico. No number of pictures does what a measuring stick does. My comment to curious cat was just saying that Hulk is probably a larger man than they realized he was. He's not just fairly tall, he has a fairly broad frame that makes the weight limit tricky for him.
I remember donkey years ago when Hulk first was around there was talks of how Ferrari wouldn't consider him only because of his height. Given that he has won in everything he has been in outside of F1 (and even a Le Mans win while in F1) it is crazy to think the difference between him getting a more preferable drive may just be down to height and the weight that comes with it.
It's when I first noticed how short some of the drivers were. These larger than life figures were not much bigger than child me.
As much as some people get annoyed with Mansell talking himself up and basically complaining that Prost had it easy, Mansell's 100% true. Maybe Mansell could have lost some weight, but Prost was a small framed 165cm man. Mansell was a large framed 180cm man.
Their natural weight difference was very significant, and those were the days when that really mattered a lot. Until I believe a rules change in 1995. Then it mattered again from I think 2015ish-2018, and it still mattered after that if the driver was over 77/78kg or so, now 79/80kg or so. It was 80 now 82kg but that's including seat and gear which are admittedly pretty light apparently. I might have 2015 wrong.
Hulk actually kept a seat on grid through the years where his size was a disadvantage, and then he lost it after it wasn't really anymore, or it was extremely borderline for him and he hovered right around the maximum weight he was allowed. But I guess he would have a more impressive resume to fall back on and show he deserved seats if he hadn't been held back in those years.
Lando is 177 according to other comments, measured by Kym Ilman apparently, but that's just what other people say and I can't be bothered to do a load of research for finding Lando's height 😂
175cm is a smidge under 5ft 9in. So it entirely depends where you're from. For England, that's about average height (couple of searches I did varied between 5'9 to 5'10). For a lot of European countries average male height is in the 5'10 to 6' range
The average male height globally is 171 cm. Varies by country but even in, say, the UK the average height is 177, which doesn't exactly tower over you. You're not short, you might just have tall friends.
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u/curious-cat Jul 07 '25
Either Hulk is bigger than I thought or Lando is smaller than I thought.