The Formula 1 World Championship – logistical challenges

As you know, Formula 1 is a global sport which transcends boundaries. Apart from Europe, Formula 1 also has races outside of the continent, in countries like Australia, Japan and Malaysia. Additionally, we now have races in China and South Korea, with the Indian GP happening this year. Racing alone is just a small part of each the Formula 1 campaign.

There are also other aspects behind the sport, including training (mentally, physically and mechanically), branding and marketing, driver development and so on. Logistics also play a rather vital role in the sport. Traveling from one race to another in Europe alone is already a monumental task, so you can imagine how difficult it can be if teams have to travel to say, Malaysia.

With the 2011 Malaysian GP kicking off in moments, let us take a quick look at the logistical aspect of Formula 1. The Formula 1 circus covers up to 160,000 km within a championship, including official test sessions and at least 30 tonnes of equipment, including up to 100 personnel, have to be transported to each race weekend or test session. There are basically two kinds of races: European and flyaway races. The former obviously takes place within the European continent, while flyaway races are made up by GPs outside of the continent.

With the former, teams such as Lotus Renault basically transport equipment including the cars on trucks. These trucks are rather huge and each team usually has a few units. These trucks are of course a sight a behold, because each of them are decorated with the team’s livery. For those Formula 1 geeks out there, including yours truly, it is something totally cool.

These trucks will house parts, equipment, spare parts enough for up to three cars. There is also one spare chassis apart from the two existing cars. Some items, however, including fuel and tyres are brought in via separate partners or local contractors. The interesting thing is some of these trucks will transform into something else during tests or races. For example, two trucks can combine and turn into a special room housing, say 15-20 computers for the engineers.

Engineers use these computers to read data given out by the cars and each car can have up to 200 different sensors feeding data to the engineers who can then use these data to improve the car’s setup, in an effort to improve performance. These trucks can also turn into hospitality units.

Then there are the flyaway races. It is generally harder to transport equipment to such races. Everything is flown, which explains why you don’t see those mammoth trucks at these races, which is quite unfortunate actually.

At Sepang, for example, everything is housed within the pit garage and for hospitality, it is more of a simple setup. Furthermore, teams will have to create their own specially-designed cargo crates to make full use of every inch of space in the plane. Most teams use cargo plans that are chartered by FOM (Formula One Management).

If the next race is another flyaway one, items will be transported there directly, instead of being sent back to the headquarters. The logistical aspect of Formula 1 also covers hotel accommodation where each team might use up to 100 rooms. There is also the use of hire vehicles to transfer team personnel from the hotel to the track and vice versa, and not to mention to events pertaining to marketing and branding.

So there you have it. Hopefully you now have a clearer idea on how crazy it can be when it comes to Formula 1 logistics. Now back to the Malaysian GP – according to our man Danny Tan, who is at the track at the moment, there is a 90% chance of rain, after referring to Red Bull’s weather forecast radar. The race is about to start, enjoy!

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