- adidas has created unique insulative garments designed to maximise the benefit of cooling vests for drivers
- As an Official Team Partner of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli will have access to the adidas CLIMACOOL System from the first race of the new season
- The adidas CLIMACOOL System has shown in testing to help support improved endurance and athlete performance
Ahead of the start of the 2025 season, adidas have unveiled the CLIMACOOL System – comprised of an insulated Jacket and specially created Cooling Vest. The CLIMACOOL System will be available to the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team for any races where hot conditions can impact driver performance.
The unique design has been created to address an ongoing performance challenge for drivers throughout the season – staying at the optimum temperature before racing in hot conditions. In hot conditions drivers can experience temperatures in their car reaching 55-60 degrees Celsius leading to up to 4.2kg of sweat loss. The opportunity to help drivers better maintain their optimum temperature exists in a short 20-minute window to cool down after preparation and ahead of the race beginning. The current solution in the sport is to wear a cooling or ice vest, but adidas have created the CLIMACOOL System to maximise the benefit and deliver reductions in skin and core temperature that are unachievable using vests alone.
The adidas CLIMACOOL Jacket consists of a cooling agent working in tandem with cooling fans and insulative materials. In lab testing the System, the Jacket in combination with a specially created Cooling Vest alongside industry leaders INUTEQ, created almost double the impact of wearing only a cooling or ice vest on skin and core temperature. According to existing research*, reductions in core and skin temperature can result in better performance in cognitive tasks as well as improved decision making. Endurance benefit, measured as time to fatigue in time trials, can also see improvement of up to 25%.
The CLIMACOOL System was created in the adidas Innovation Lab and being initially tested with Kimi Antonelli, before both Kimi and George Russell took the opportunity of pre-season testing in Bahrain to take the System into their race day setup. The drivers will have it available to them throughout the season, when the conditions mean the potential performance benefit can be realized. Both drivers and their race teams will continue to provide feedback to adidas to help find every possible performance edge in the design.
Alasdhair Willis, Chief Creative Officer of adidas said: “When we returned to motorsport we wanted to see how we could bring true performance benefits to the teams. Our CLIMACOOL System is the first example of how we will bring innovation into the sport. We are challenging ourselves to deliver more impact, at greater speed, and products tuned to the specific needs of more sports. We will create the very best for the drivers.”
George Russell, Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team Driver said: “Heat management is a key topic in F1. In hot races it is important to try and maintain a consistent and optimized core body temperature when in the car. When I first tried the adidas CLIMACOOL System I knew it would be something I’d want to include in my race day package. The challenging conditions bring an extra element to racing and I’m confident this will help improve my performance.”
Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team Driver said: “In very hot and humid races mitigating the rise in body temperature is important for performing at our best in the car. When I got to test the adidas CLIMACOOL System I was really impressed with the impact I felt. It’s clear there is a benefit for us as drivers and I’m looking forward to experiencing that during the season.”
The adidas CLIMACOOL System is the second new product in the reintroduction of the adidas CLIMACOOL range after the reveal of an innovative CLIMACOOL shoe last year. Initially designed in 2002, the CLIMACOOL range was created using extensive athlete testing and disrupted the sports industry with cooling technologies never seen before. adidas will bring further CLIMACOOL products to athletes, including solutions for elite athletes at the top of their game, through to explorations in design for the next generation of cooling technology.
Earlier this year adidas returned to the world of motorsport and announced a multi-year partnership with the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, which has united two icons in one of the world’s fastest growing sports. Built on a shared commitment to performance and excellence, the partnership leverages adidas’ 75-years of experience working with athletes at the top of their game to support the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team in driving success.
Notes
*Recent research on physical and perceptual cooling; improving cognitive function, mood, disturbance and time to fatigue in the heat.
Saldaris, Landers, Lay, 2019: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/sms.13623
About adidas
adidas is a global leader in the sporting goods industry. Headquartered in Herzogenaurach/Germany, the company employs more than 62,000 people across the globe and generated sales of € 23.7 billion in 2024.
About the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team
Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team is the works team of Mercedes-AMG, competing at the pinnacle of motorsport – the FIA Formula One™ World Championship. Formula One is a sport like no other. Combining elite teamwork, cutting-edge technologies and innovation, high-performance management and exceptional driving skill, teams develop race cars capable of competing against their rivals in a high-octane environment that spans 24 races across five continents.
The Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team, based across Technology Centres at Brackley and Brixworth in the United Kingdom, brings together over 2,000 dedicated and determined people that design, develop, manufacture and race the cars that aim to fight for world championships each year. Winning seven consecutive double Drivers’ and Constructors’ World Championships from 2014 to 2020 and securing a record-breaking eighth consecutive Constructors’ Championship success in 2021, the team is one of the most successful in the sport’s history.
Between returning as a Constructor in 2010 and the end of the 2024 season, the Mercedes-AMG works team has scored 120 wins, 281 podium finishes, 133 pole positions, 100 fastest laps and 55 one-two finishes from 305 race starts.
For more information, please visit www.mercedesamgf1.com.