We’re all going on a summer holiday
Friday ,5 August 2011
During the gap between the Hungarian and Belgian GPs all the teams are obliged to close their factories for a fortnight. The intention is to allow everyone who works in the sport to take some welcome time off in the middle of a busy 2011 schedule.
Inevitably in this sport work expands to fill the time available, so the only way to ensure that team personnel can get a break is to close the factory. Some teams began their shutdown on August 1, immediately after Hungary, while others – including Force India – begin the break on August 8. That means there will be no work done until the shutdown ends on the morning of August 22.
Since its introduction – the result of an agreement between the teams – the shutdown has been popular with the guys in the frontline, who work long days for most of the year, both at the circuit and at the Silverstone factory.
“Everybody is pretty tired,” says Sporting Director Andy Stevenson. “It is a tough schedule, and we all work very hard. We want to be competitive, so we’ve got to put everything into it to make sure the car achieves the results that we’re looking for. Fortunately for us at the moment, while we’re not quite there, we are getting very close now. And that is down to all the work. But people need a rest, and that time has come.
“It’s an agreement between all the teams. We agree to shut down for 14 consecutive days within a three-week period. Some teams find it suitable to do it sooner after the Hungarian event, others leave it a week, which is what we’re doing.”
Only a few people will be in the factory, and nobody who works on the cars is allowed in: “All we can do is very small amounts of maintenance. It gives us a chance to get maintenance teams in to service machinery and tidy up the factory, whereas when we’re operational, we don’t have time to do that. But basically everybody who’s involved operationally with the car and with production is on holiday. We have to turn the servers off, so there’s no communication.”
Of course people in F1 always find it hard to switch off: “You’re never going to stop people thinking. I shall probably be lying down somewhere thinking about how we can try and get an edge over someone as far as a sporting advantage is concerned. But I will be doing that whilst relaxing as well.
“We can’t come in, we can’t do anything, and from experience people don’t. You don’t have to worry. Because everything is shut down you don’t go on holiday worrying about coming back to two weeks’ worth of email. Last year I came back and didn’t have one email in my inbox! It’s fantastic, it’s like going away for the weekend, but you’ve got 14 days.”
Andy insists that even with the break coming, the days after the Hungarian GP were not busier than usual.
“It isn’t any different from the time spent between normal races when there’s a two-week period. We don’t have to ramp up, and we don’t have to ramp up afterwards as well, to try and catch up. As long as the planning is done correctly and production can do what they need to do leading up to this time, it doesn’t create any issues.
“It allows the championship to run all year. People don’t get burned out. Some of the teams have more people than us, and this allows us to give our guys a chance to recharge their batteries and come back.
“It’s like the second half in football. If you were to have the teams play non-stop for 90 minutes, the game at the end would be rubbish, but this allows the second part of the season to be as interesting as the first.”
For the guys whose job is to make the car go faster, it’s not easy to switch off. But everyone acknowledges that holiday time is time well spent. Director of Circuit Engineering, Dominic Harlow, welcomes the chance to have a break from the busy schedule.
“It’s an interesting point in the season,” says Dominic. “With the progress we’ve made recently, you want to keep the momentum going, but you still want to have a bit of a rest.
“Double header races like Germany/Hungary can be quite intense, and you can’t always give your optimum if you’re getting tired, so it’s good to get a break. Personally I’m going to have 10 days away – with a couple of days at each end to catch my breath and get back into it, and hopefully it will be seamless!”
He acknowledges that it’s not easy to switch off, and inevitably there will be times that he’ll be thinking about how to improve the car. And doing that while away from the factory can lead to a fresh approach.
“You can think about things in a different set of circumstances rather than during the daily job at the factory, with meetings and reports. You can actually have a different perspective and a different set of observations and ideas.
“If I’m honest the fact that it does occupy me so much is one of the beauties of the job. If I was able to switch off perhaps I wouldn’t be so in love with the job, and just to get away from it for a couple of weeks reaffirms that for you, and it’s a good thing to do now and again.”
Credit: Force India (www.forceindiaf1.com)
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