During the recent Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix, Lotus F1 Team chief mechanic, Greg Baker, gave Auto123.com details about the crew’s busy schedule.
WEDNESDAY “If it’s a European race, we travel early Wednesday morning and normally get to the circuit around 2 pm,” said Baker. The garage has been set-up, and the cars and equipment have already been delivered to the track. For the next few hours, the mechanics will be busy putting the cars together with all the correct components. “We can be there until 11 pm as there is no curfew on Wednesday night. We try not to leave things for the Thursday,” he continued.
THURSDAY “We fire up the engines on the Thursday morning, and check all the systems,” Baker explained. The cars are taken to technical inspection with their power units and gearboxes for Friday’s running. The mounted tires are collected from Pirelli and regrouped in sets. The drivers and engineers walk the track. The Lotus E23 Hybrids are checked one last time.
FRIDAY – Two free practice sessions “We usually leave the hotel around 6:30 am. It is the busiest day of the weekend for us. We’ll probably work right until the curfew,” Baker told Auto123.com. “We rebuild [most of] the cars at the end of FP2. We fit a race engine and a race gearbox in each car. There are also parts to swap around, and certain suspension pieces that we change because of the mileage we put on them,” he continued. “If you’re working up to the curfew, you’d be back at the hotel and get four, five hour’s sleep, and then you’re back into it again.” SATURDAY – One free practice session and qualifying The Lotus team members leave the hotel around 7:30 am and get straight into it at the circuit. “The gap between FP3 and qualifying is extremely small. We need to install race exhausts, race brakes, that kind of stuff. Each circuit requires different things,” Baker told us.
“If you get to Q3, you get the cars from parc fermé, and then you have an hour and a half to look at the cars, take the floors off, make sure they are OK, and have them rebuilt so that they look like F1 cars. “There’s very little we can do now after qualifying. There are things that are OK, but if we run into a problem or we need to break a seal, we must apply to the FIA and they decide if we can do it or not. If it’s a gearbox change for example, there’s a penalty that goes with it,” he added. SUNDAY - Race “On Sunday morning, we make sure everything’s ready, have a good look at the cars, make sure everything’s fine. We cannot really work on the cars, but we can have a good look at them,” the Lotus man continued. During the race, the team members stay on their toes in the garage and execute tire changes.
“After the race is over on Sunday, we generally have about eight hours of work ahead of us,” Baker explained. “We pretty much strip the cars. Everything goes back to the factory. To strip these completely takes a good four hours of work. And of course we have to take everything else down in the garage, pack everything, put it all in the freight boxes,” he continued. If it’s a European race, the material is packed inside the transporters. If it’s a fly away race, the pallets and cars must be ready to be picked up in the pit lane at a precise time. After it’s all done, the Lotus team members catch the plane to return to their base in Enstone, Great Britain. And this is repeated 19 times each year.
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