Haryanto may stop Muslim fasting for race day

Jun.12 - Rio Haryanto's religious beliefs may need to take a back seat to safety in the Canadian grand prix on Sunday.

The Indonesian rookie is a strict Muslim, and therefore currently fasting - including not drinking water - between dawn and sunset.

But the Mirror newspaper quoted Haryanto's manager Piers Hunnisett as admitting that Ramadan might need to take a back seat to safety when it comes to Sunday's long and high-speed race on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

"It's more of a safety issue," he said.

"He has been following his faith in Montreal this week but we will see what the advice of the team doctors is. It is a long race and there is a worry about dehydration.

"Drivers lose a lot of body fluid during a race and we don't want him losing concentration when he is driving at 350km/h," Hunnisett added.

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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