28/07/2011
Last weekend the Nürburgring, this weekend the Hungaroring. With a Grand Prix taking under two hours on a Sunday it may sound like a simple task to get cars and personnel from point A to point B, but it’s not quite as straightforward as that.
The F1 paddock is full of trailers and motor homes, and the garages are full of specialist equipment. All this needs to be fully set-up and functioning by the Thursday morning of a Grand Prix.
After a race, it’s pack-down time on Sunday evening, then it’s all go to the next destination.
For Lotus Renault GP, the man tasked with ensuring everything runs smoothly in this process is Race Team Co-ordinator, Geoff Simmonds.
“Nürburgring to Budapest – it sounds easier than our other European back-to-back - Spain to Monaco - but in actual fact it’s not any easier because of the distances involved.
“From Spain to Monaco it’s only a six hour road trip, and you can be working on the motor homes, cars and garage by Monday afternoon, but we don’t start the build process in Budapest until Tuesday morning because of the distances involved.
“Most of the crew fly over, and we have extra people from the support crew who come out for the build-up as any extra pairs of hands are always appreciated.
“This means we’re aiming to get the garage set-up in one day rather than the usual one and a half days, which means it’s a pretty full day.
“The nature of the paddock at the Hungaroring is such that there isn’t a separate area for the motor homes and the trailers. This means that the motor home build-up takes priority, especially for those teams which have very large and time consuming units to build
“Our motor home is quicker to build than some others however we cannot bring our trucks in until the more complex to build ones have been completed, which means we get access on Wednesday around lunchtime.
“We do as much as we can to prepare on a Tuesday so we’re ready to park the trucks and get everything underway as soon as we get access.
“If everything goes to plan then everyone’s happy, but there are always some problems somewhere along the line. If one team has a problem and a truck is delayed, then this has a knock-on effect for everyone.
“All the teams work very closely together, and we work closely with our neighbours – at this event Williams and Mercedes - to ensure we’re working as well together as we can. We may be rivals on track, but in the paddock we all do everything we can to ensure everything runs smoothly for everyone else.
“The race crew came in on Wednesday afternoon to work on the cars in the garage to get everything to a reasonable state of affairs before running through our normal programmes on Thursday.
“Everything is actually really easy as long as everything works well, it’s just time management. But the problems are when something causes a delay, no matter how small, as this has repercussions for so many people.
“We know very well how long it takes to unpack and set-up everything as well as the travel distances involved so it is relatively easy to make a plan, and the biggest unknowns are the traffic, if there are any breakdowns from any of the trucks or if there is a flight delay or cancellation and personnel cannot get to the track.
“We’re always very optimistic with our plans and everyone works very efficiently together to get everything completed in time.
“There were no problems and here we are on Thursday with everything set-up and working as it should be.”
Credit: Lotus Renault GP (www.lotusrenaultgp.com)
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