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How Teams Handle the Complicated Logistics of Formula 1?

Published 01/25/2020, 2:37 PM EST

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All racing fans see is the cars and drivers doing battle on tracks across the world. The collective logistics that go into making each race happen to dwarf the efforts of the competitions themselves. The logistics of moving Formula 1 between destinations is similar to a military operation.

The action takes place on the track, but the real race happens behind the scenes. Teams, cars, equipment, and even buildings move all over the world to be at each event.

Each of the teams travels about 62,000 miles during the season, bringing with it two cars and roughly 50 tons of equipment.  From spare parts to the pots and pans used in the catering trailers. It’s enough to fill six Boeing 747 jumbo jets.

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Teams keep an army of people on the road for as many as 200 days a year.

Logistics of Formula 1

Most Formula 1 teams are situated in Europe. Haas F1 is headquartered in the U.S. yet additionally has a base in the United Kingdom. The vast majority of the season’s mid-year races take place on the mainland as well.

Teams can just truck their hardware starting with one track then onto the next. With certain Grands Prix on consecutive ends of the week, it’s as yet a smash to pack, move, and set up at another track in time for the next stop on the schedule.

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For example, teams needed to truck everything 1,000 miles across Europe from Spielberg, Austria to Silverstone, the U.K. in only three days. This includes arrangement and breakdown time.

To achieve this, each truck has three drivers to keep it moving consistently, barring the refueling stops. Even these coordinations are basic in comparison to the races outside Europe.

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How F1 cars and parts travel outside of Europe?

The teams stuff the non-basic merchandise in holders and put them on ships a very long time before the next race. They actually take the moderate vessel to China and other places. Then, teams start pressing increasingly critical gear even before one race is over. It travels to the following race via load conveying Boeing 747s contracted by Formula 1.

Everything must merge via land, air, and ocean thousands of miles away at the perfect time to make each race conceivable.

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DHL handles the logistics for Formula 1. “It’s a race against time,” says Simon Price from DHL Global Forwarding.

Let’s say you’ve got a piece of equipment like a vise. It’s not high in value but probably weighs 10 kilos. So it makes economic sense to duplicate it five times over and send it by sea, rather than to fly a single heavy object around the world. You wouldn’t do it with car parts. You might with crowd control barriers or garage paneling, larger, heavier items that are relatively low cost.” says Formula 1 Sporting Director Steve Nielsen.

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Written by:

Abhay Aggarwal

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Abhay Aggarwal is sports analyst at EssentiallySports. Having joined ES in early 2020, he has over 300 NASCAR, Formula 1, and Tennis articles to his name. Abhay has been an avid motorsports fan for over a decade, and he even attended the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in 2011.
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