It is inevitable in Formula 1, where drivers compete at over 200 m.p.h., that sometimes they are going to crash into the barriers. What is impressive is how fast a wreckage is repaired.
“It tends to always be controlled carnage, depending on how big the accident is,” Ollie Middleton, the No. 1 mechanic for Carlos Sainz of Williams, said in an interview.
Crashes during a race can end in a failure to finish, but if they happen during practice or qualifying, teams must undertake a repair job. Mechanics have to repair a damaged car inside the team’s pit garage, but the actual job begins almost as soon as the car hits the barriers.
Alpine sprang into action at last month’s Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, when the driver Jack Doohan crashed just minutes into the second practice session.
“We’ve got the TV feed, it was very clear at Suzuka, it was a mess,” Rob Cherry, the Alpine race team manager, said in an interview. “From watching a replay it was quite obvious what we’d need to do. We also have a lot of sensors on the car that show the loads, on the suspension, the G-force the chassis has seen, that’s the data-driven side, so we begin making assessments based on that.”
Mechanics will prepare the required spare parts — teams bring backup parts to Grands Prix — and a visual inspection once the car is back in the garage will provide more detail.
“We can see on the data if something has gone over its strain limit,” Middleton said. “It’s a different story when the car comes back and you physically see the damage, if you see the radiators are crushed. Then it’s a 15-minute detailed plan, you pick your decision and go for it.”
For Doohan’s accident, Alpine brought a spare chassis from its storage in a freight container to the pit garage, and the mechanics got to work, the team having received the required approval from the sport’s governing body, the F.I.A., to make the chassis swap.
Doohan’s car, the A525, was equipped with a new front wing, new rear wing, floor, bodywork, gearbox, suspension components and exhausts, though the power unit was intact and fit for continued use. The repair was completed in around eight hours, and the car was ready for the final practice the next day.
“People just jump in, it’s not headless chickens running around doing anything, people know their limits, but they can offer a hand,” Cherry said. “Maybe it’s sweeping the broken carbon and gravel off the floor; it all helps. And no one has to ask, it’s very smooth and flowing.”
The team can then gradually attach the new components.
When a car sustains structural damage, “It is a whole new ballgame,” Middleton said. “The best way to describe it is you’re working between people’s legs, you might be bolting on a lower wishbone while someone’s repairing a fairing, it can be pretty intense. We take a step back, none of us are talking, we know exactly what’s going on at each time.”
It will be clear to mechanics that some components are beyond repair, but other less-damaged parts could still, in theory, return to use.
“We put scrap in one box, then there’s another box where things are visually OK, but had an overload or needed further checks,” Cherry said. “It goes to the factory, there’s various sign-off processes, then signed out of quarantine by an engineering lead in the factory to say they’re happy and it can return to track for use. In days gone by, parts would have been written off, but in a cost-cap era it’s different, and the value of the material is higher, you can’t just get rid of it.”
Location and timing also influence the task for mechanics. Crash damage is usually higher at a street track, where logistically getting a damaged car back swiftly can be tougher because of fewer access roads.
“Jeddah is a track where I can’t watch a qualifying lap on the screen, where you’re so close to a wall, the tiniest nick can cause the biggest damage,” Middleton said of the race in Saudi Arabia. “Towards the end of the season it can be tiring, towards the end of a tripleheader, you’re repairing in the field, so if you’ve had a few bumps or wear and tear you’re losing spares, regardless of a crash, so by the end of that you’re up against it.”
A driver crashing when there is a short turnaround time between sessions also heightens the stress.
“The highest pressure is between third practice and qualifying as it’s a short window, and if you don’t qualify you’re at the back,” Cherry said. “We did have a driver, a long time ago, Vitaly Petrov, who had a habit of coming unstuck and had a real talent of doing it in third practice, where there are only two hours to prepare the car before qualifying. He’d go out, the car would be destroyed. I think he took three corners off the car in China: the floor’s damaged, the bodywork, the wings, we’d had an air-box fire in the engine, it was a mess.”
The team, though, fixed the car in time for qualifying, and it is those situations where the camaraderie comes through.
“No one wants an accident, but if there’s any fuss, people secretly enjoy it,” Cherry said. “Given enough time and information, most people can do anything, including building an F1 car: If you’ve got the manual and the documentation you’d get there, it’s just how long it’d take to get there. That’s where people earn their money: It’s doing it in a high-pressure situation, working fast and pushing to make a deadline, but it still needs to be right.”
Williams suffered two large accidents in last year’s São Paulo Grand Prix qualifying session, which had been delayed from Saturday to Sunday morning, just hours before the Grand Prix.
“It’s everyone’s worst nightmare, the inkling that if it goes wrong it’ll be a tough ask,” Middleton said. “And we only got one car out, but given how low our spares were we were happy to get one car out to a good state on the grid. The emotions are mad through the day, you go from down in the dumps — the cameras love to show people with their heads in their hands — but the buzz you get from the car going out and running reliably in a race is immense.”
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