The unknown importance of a Red Bull victory: 'Never packed so fast'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
It doesn't look like it at the moment, but should all Grands Prix continue in 2021, the F1 teams will face their biggest logistical challenge so far. 23 race weekends in a year in which their work is also complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. Gerrard O'Reilly, the man responsible for logistics at Red Bull Racing, explains to Speedweek.com how they are going to tackle it.
"Thorough preparation is all-important. When a box is unpacked somewhere, we already start thinking about how we can pack everything again as efficiently as possible. That sounds trivial, but you just have to know exactly where everything is. We have become better at this, but we are slower now, for the simple reason that we take much more material with us than we used to."
Different circuits have their advantages and disadvantages
How much time you spend in total on this constant relocation depends entirely on the circuits you visit in a season. On large complexes such as Bahrain and Shanghai, teams have all the space in the world and mechanics can work quickly. On the other hand, it also helps if most GPs are held in Europe, as was the case last year. Then they can simply drive their trucks into the pits.
However, there are special circumstances in which the team works extra quickly. For Red Bull and Max Verstappen it is to be hoped that these will often occur in 2021 because the best way to pack quickly is: "A victory! We never packed faster than after our triumph at Silverstone [last year]. When we win a race, the whole team works as if they were under power," O'Reilly said.