So, I wondered to myself, just how DOES a F1 team get from Silverstone to Montreal? Do they just run their trailers onto a ship? Do they take just some of the stuff on an airplane? Wrap the car in bubblewrap and send it FedEx?

So I did some searching. Turns out the answer is "yes." It's all about speed and priorities (figures, huh?). Many of the spares needed to run a F1 team are loaded onto a cargo ship (for the Montreal race, they were sent out after Imola!). The cars are palletized and stacked on top of each other, then loaded into a jet transport. Engines, most of the 80 people on a team, and the complex computer systems they use for telemetry, etc, are also carried via jet.

The teams arrive the Monday before the race, and run their own computer cabling, hook up their own tools, and so forth. They unpack the cars, reattach the bodywork, stick engines in the things, and off they go. According to one website, each team moves roughly 40 tons of material in up to 100 crates per race.

Last year after Canada, the Williams team tried shipping most of their gear to Indy via truck... which is substantially cheaper than air freight. It's also substantially slower, which is why they'll be flying everything in after Sunday's race.

The money doesn't all go to driver's salaries and R&D, folks.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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