15.3 versus 2.3 percent: why co-drivers feel sick during recce and barely on stage — plus the gaze strategy and three triggers you can change today.
Nausea hits co-drivers almost always during recce, not in competition: in a study of rally co-drivers, 15.3 percent reported nausea during recce but only 2.3 percent on the special stage — reading a book in a moving car produced 25.9 percent [1].
Sounds paradoxical, but it is logical. The honest answer: on the stage your central vision is locked on the notes, peripheral vision is restricted anyway by the helmet and your forward-leaning head — and your head anticipates the coming accelerations, because you know what is next [1]. During recce, by contrast, your gaze jumps constantly between road and notebook [1].
The study surveyed 85 active rally co-drivers, 21 of them women, and describes the mechanism as a visuo-vestibular conflict with linear and so-called Coriolis accelerations — rotational stimuli that arise when you move your head while the car is turning [2].
And now the part that saves careers: habituation through repetition works [1]. Nausea in the right-hand seat is the most common reason beginners give up co-driving — and one of the most solvable.
Because the task is a different one. You drive recce slowly in an ordinary road car and write the notes as you go — corner by corner, surface change by surface change [3]. Exactly that back and forth between road and paper creates the conflict [1].
On the stage you only read. Your gaze stays down, your head knows what is coming — and the rate falls to 2.3 percent [1].
Your balance organ reports motion, your eyes report a stationary sheet of paper. That contradiction is called a visuo-vestibular conflict, amplified by rotational stimuli when you move your head while the car turns [2].
Translated: it is not the driving that makes you sick, it is the switching between two worlds of information.
The study names them clearly: stress at 63 percent, odours on board at 46.5 percent, interior temperature at 43 percent [1].
All three are organisational questions, not talent questions. Leave earlier instead of rushing. Ventilate, no air fresheners, no fuel smell on your clothes. And open the window before it gets warm. Three adjustments, zero euros.
Keep looks down short and planned: write when the road is straight, look up before it turns. Write in shorthand, not sentences — that is what the system is for [5].
And one detail that helps surprisingly much: dictate out loud while you write. You immediately hear whether your own text is readable — and you lift your head more often automatically.
Your body learns this. The authors state explicitly that habituation through repetition is possible [1]. In practice: regular short recce runs beat one long one a year.
And for reassurance about competition day: the load there is a completely different kind — at a world championship round peak heart rate in competition was 166 beats per minute against 111 during recce [4]. More tension, less nausea. Exactly the opposite of what most people expect.
Recce takes place on public roads in ordinary traffic — slowly, in a road car, with oncoming vehicles and residents [3]. Nausea is a safety issue there too: someone who feels sick writes worse notes, and bad notes are dangerous in competition.
On motion sickness medication: many types cause drowsiness and impair attention. In motorsport that is not a comfort question but a risk — that decision belongs with a doctor, not in a guide.
And if it catches you anyway: get out, fresh air, drink, and only continue the notes when your head is clear again. A missing entry can be fixed, a wrong one cannot.
This guide explains and motivates — it never replaces medical advice, the licence course or instruction from experienced teams.
Split recce into two roles per run: on the first run the driver dictates and you write only the skeleton — severity, direction, distance [5]. On the second run you read out loud and only add what is wrong.
The effect is double: the notes get better because they pass twice through your shared head — and on the second run your gaze is down almost continuously, which is exactly the configuration that produces only 2.3 percent nausea on a stage [1]. You are training the very state you need in competition.
Less often than everyone assumes — and not where you expect. Among rally co-drivers nausea occurred in 15.3 percent during recce but only 2.3 percent on the special stage [1]. On the stage the gaze stays fixed on the notes and the head anticipates the accelerations [1].
Work on the three documented triggers: stress (63 percent), odours on board (46.5 percent) and interior temperature (43 percent) [1]. So leave earlier, ventilate and remove air fresheners, keep the car cool. Add short, planned looks into the notebook instead of continuous staring [1] and a shorthand system that costs little reading time [5].
You drive the stage slowly in an ordinary road car, the driver dictates and the co-driver notes every corner, every surface change and every hazard as shorthand made of severity, direction and distance [3][5]. On the second run the co-driver reads out loud and you correct anything unclear.
Yes, and that is the encouraging part: the authors state that habituation through repetition is possible [1]. Regular short recce runs work better than one long one per season. The mechanism behind it is a visuo-vestibular conflict the system can adapt to [2].
Rally Fit: Heat, Heart Rate, Hydration and Why Driving Really Is Hard Work