Jump to
When a Formula 1 driver crosses the finish line, another race begins: the race to transport the team’s cars, equipment and personnel from one country to another.
The Alpine F1 team packs around 45,000 parts (enough to build three cars) into a Boeing 777 for the intercontinental race. Those parts, plus the equipment and kits used to assemble the car later, are placed in 16 shipping boxes weighing a total of 35 tons, Paul Seaby, head of factory support at the Alpine race team, told Insider.
The procedure begins on Sunday evening after a race, when an Alpine team disassembles the car into pieces, loads them onto trucks and sends them to the airport.
“We usually finish around one o’clock in the morning,” said Seaby, who has worked with the team for more than 30 years.
F1 groups such as Alpine are in the final stages of a nine-month, 23-race season spanning 20 countries and five continents. The tap logistics required to ship groups, cars and materials around the world are enormous, Sven Smeets – the Williams Racing principal – told Insider.
“It’s a big circus of people, parts and equipment moving around the world to make sure that from Friday morning everything is there to organise an F1 weekend,” he said.
Getting every car, equipment, and body of workers on the circuit to make the circus imaginable requires a meticulously planned combination of air, sea, and road transportation.
The cars, Seathrough said, are shipped in portions to be compatible with aircraft, which are shared across teams and run in F1. Moving the cars in portions also allows the team to implement between 50 and 200 upgrades (or innovations) on a car when it’s built before each race, Seathrough said.
Sea transportation is required for foreign races. To be compatible with this year’s schedule, Alpine packed six sets of 4 shipping boxes, weighing up to 24 tonnes, with race-specific kitchen equipment, refrigerators, ovens, chairs, tables and parts, plus garage equipment, carts with shelves and the pit wall. . . These shipping boxes move around the world in a predetermined direction to maximize efficiency.
During the European component of the season, no sea freight is required. Alpine is filling about 20 trucks with cross-the-continent devices, Seaby said.
Alpine is also bringing between 100 and 115 more people to the race. This includes 58 operational employees (the maximum allowed in F1) who work directly with the car, adding engineers, mechanics, electricians, the pit prevention team, two racing drivers and a replacement driver. The rest of the staff includes caterers, waiters, five chefs, a doctor, the Alpine top control user who wishes to attend, as well as a few other people from the team’s marketing and communication departments.
All these others want flights, transfers, and hotels, which is why Alpine has a firm committed to moving them from one country to another. This procedure and its strict timeline have led some team members to compare it to a military operation.
“If you’re a minute late, you get a phone call, because when you move out, you basically have to stick to the schedule,” Seaby said. “We can’t wait to get up and have breakfast. “
Team members typically fly from race to race, Seaby said, though several workers travel in business class and drivers, if they insist, travel first class. For European races, other people will opt for a road trip.
When all goes according to plan, an Alpine team arrives at the race site on a Friday to unpack the sea shipment and prepare the garage for the next few days. More arrive on Monday to unpack the air shipment and help finish the garage.
The main racing team arrives on Wednesday to build the car and make sure it meets F1 standards, which takes all day on Wednesday and Thursday at the latest. Practice, qualifying and the race take place over the weekend, and then the procedure starts again. . When there are races on consecutive weekends, a shipping team starts the procedure on Friday at the next venue, while the race weekend starts on the course.
“As the race weekend goes on in Mexico, we’ll have other people on track this weekend in construction shops and engineering offices in Brazil,” Smeets said.
With so much to keep track of, forgetting something is one of the main disruptions that can hinder the transportation process. But rarely are there obstacles that a team can’t foresee, McLaren F1 team chief operating officer Piers Thynne told Insider.
In the past, high winds have closed ports or terminals and delayed shipping or trucks, Thynne said. In addition, cars have been damaged, tunnels have been closed in Europe, and volcanic eruptions that have created clouds of smoke across Europe have disrupted air travel.
“All of that is abnormal and challenges you from time to time,” he said.
When one step in the process is delayed, groups have to work long hours to catch up.
This whole game can be energy intensive, but F1 has said they are working to make the game as green as possible.
In 2019, Formula 1 announced a plan for the sport and its groups to have a net-zero carbon footprint by 2030. This will reduce the carbon footprint of track activities and make the logistics and transport of the sport more sustainable.
Thynne told Insider that for last year’s Belgian Grand Prix, only about 70 team members traveled from the U. K. to Brussels on the Eurostar or Eurotunnel train. By opting for this instead of air travel, he said team members have reduced their carbon footprint by more than 60 percent. .
As long as the groups can adapt to those adjustments and stick to the schedule, they will be in a position to face race day.
“You have to be as sensible as possible to make sure all the updates are on track,” Seaby said. “So you have to make sure that certain things come out on time. “