F3 racer Mansell's special permission for a mobile phone in his car

The FIA has strict rules about the sort of things that a driver can keep with him in the cockpit during a race - even down to personal jewellery and body piercings, as Lewis Hamilton memorably found out in 2022.

Certainly the idea of having a mobile phone in the car is strictly off-limits as it could give teams a back channel for unauthorised discussions that can't be monitored and overseen by race control during the event.

And it's not like a driver will have time to check his social media or post an Instragram update while going flat out down the start-finish straight. But to every rule there is an exception, and in F3 that exception is Christian Mansell.

The 19-year-old driver from Maitland, New South Wales (no relation to former world champion Nigel) has been given special dispensation by the governing body to keep his mobile phone with him, on account of a medical condition.

The Australian suffers from type 1 diabetes and recently revealed that he needs to keep a glucose monitor connected to him during the race to ensure that he doesn't suffer a potentially catastrophic sudden drop in blood sugar levels.

• Read also: Defiant Hamilton won't comply with FIA jewellery ban

“I have a constant glucose monitor which is with me at all times in the car. It's actually connected to me physically: there's a needle inside of me as we speak, that monitors my blood sugar,” he said last year.

This year he's added a specially customised mobile phone to the technology he uses to monitor and manage his condition, which has developed with the blessing and assistance of the FIA.

“It's actually quite simple,” he told Australian sports website Speedcafe last week at Zandvoort. “I basically have a fibreglass case that my phone gets mounted to the cockpit with.

“Obviously I can't do anything to it!" he added. "The FIA actually locked the phone, they set a password on it. They've been really helpful in the whole process.

The phone helps transmit data about his blood sugar levels, ensuring that his body is in the right place physically to start the race even as he takes his seat on the grid.

“There's a lot of preparation behind the scenes and I think what's helped me most," he said. “Actually being able to do my job is already such a feat in itself that I'm already very proud of myself.

“As far as being physically fit, I have to get my blood sugar levels in a good window,” he explained. “That's hard, but it's doable, because I do it every day."

“I've spoken to a few of the drivers in the paddock, and they've come up to me and said, ‘I don't even know how you do it'," he said. “But it's just through trial and error that we managed to get it down to a tee.”

Diabetes can be hard enough to manage in every day life, even before adding the stresses of competitive motor racing. “I try and separate racing diabetes and normal diabetes as best I can, because at the end of the day there is a difference."

So far it doesn't appear to be stopping the driver's steady rise through the ranks. He's currently in sixth place in his third season in the F3 drivers championship, initially with Charouz and Campos and now with ART.

So far he's been runner-up in four races and on the podium twice more, as well as starting from pole in this year's second race at Catalunya. Thanks to Mansell and team mates Laurens Van Hoepen and Nikola Tsolov. ART is currently in second place in the team standings behind Prema.

It's widely expected that Mansell will graduate to F2 next year, and hopes to use his growing profile in the sport as a way of raising awareness about his condition and mental health as a whole, and being a role model for young people.

“It sounds very cliché, but it's true; if you do put your mind towards it, you genuinely can do anything,” he said, adding that it was important for him "more and more that I put myself on the world stage and show kids.

“That's why I'm such a big advocate for mental health, and that's why I'm such a big advocate for sports people living with diabetes, because at the end of the day we can do it.

“I actually recently had a mother text me in my Instagram request saying that their child is now doing karting," he smiled with understandable pride and satisfaction. "It's very, very sweet.”

Monza sees the final round in the 2024 F3 season, with Trident's Leonardo Fornaroli going into the weekend holding a single point advantage over Prema's Gabriele Minì, and Hitech's Luke Browning also very much in the running.

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