How do formula 1 drivers travel

Under any conditions, moving so much cargo around the globe is a difficult task but a condensed calendar and coronavirus induced restrictions will make it all that much harder. The larger teams usually take around personnel and 50 tonnes of cargo to each race, requiring incredibly detailed planning and effort to make the transition from race venue to race venue appear seamless.

For the European races everything is usually transported by road, but for flyaway races everything is much more complicated. Non-car related equipment, especially things that are low-cost and bulky such as office furniture, are sent by sea to keep down costs and to transport equipment in a more sustainable manner with lower carbon emissions. This cargo has to be shipped well in advance. In January the equipment going by sea is sent off to the first races of the season to ensure that everything arrives on time.

Each team has around five sets of this sea-faring cargo each containing the same equipment which spend the year on container ships. The equipment used for the Australian Grand Prix, for example, was then sent on to Canada in , before heading to Singapore. It is easier for teams to have duplicates of these items all over the world than to send them by air to each individual race and it allows the cargo to arrive in plenty of time, even if the teams and rest of the equipment are rushing straight from another race.

The most important equipment, and especially anything car-related, is flown from race to race. New parts can be flown out actually during the race weekend itself as it is not unusual to have a team member flown out from the factory with a vital part stashed in their hand luggage even as late as on the Saturday.

For each race priority pallets are packed with the essentials to put together the garage which are first to arrive at the circuit so the set-up team can start creating the F1 paddock ready for when the rest of the personnel and equipment arrive. In order to guarantee fairness the teams cannot start building at flyaway races until all the cargo has arrived, so that everyone has the same amount of time to prepare, first with everyone's priority pallets and later with the rest of the equipment.

Alongside the teams substantial amount of cargo is all the other equipment necessary for the event to go ahead, such as everything needed to build and equip the broadcasting centre. Over 60 kilometres of cabling transmitting the footage from cameras is needed to ensure that viewers from all over the globe can watch all the track action.

All across F1 there is a huge amount of planning and organisation involved in making sure that everything is in exactly the right place at exactly the right time so that each race weekend runs like clockwork. Within an hour, the first items are on trucks headed for the airport, where aircraft are fueled and ready for takeoff.

Throw a spanner in the works and the wheels are likely to come off at the next Grand Prix event. Load lists are meticulously planned weeks in advance, ensure equipment is packed onto the planes in the right order and arrives at the next venue in the correct sequence. Careful consideration also goes into transporting items by sea and land — much slower than by air, but cheaper and able to take more weight. For cheap and heavy pieces of equipment like vices or crowd control barriers, typically five duplicate sets travel by sea freight.

Formula 1 cars are always transported by road or charter flight. Road transportation involves boxing up the cars and placing them inside the truck on elevated platforms in a way that cushions and stops any movement that could damage the cars. When Formula 1 travels internationally, the cars are transported in critical chassis, engines, tires, wings and computers and non-critical jacks and tools groups. This makes it easier for teams to move equipment from country to country, as the distances between the races are much smaller.

For the European races, teams will drive all of their equipment to the tracks in special trucks. Once they arrive, everything is taken off the trucks and constructed on site. With the European section of the season often featuring several back-to-back races, teams are required to pack up and set off for the next location immediately after the race is finished.

Teams will often employ several drivers so that the trucks can travel non-stop to their next location. Bahrain hosted the first race and pre-season testing instead of Australia and Spain, respectively. There is also no race in China, and there are two Italian races, so logistics are somewhat different compared to previous years, but the same things still need to get to the races.

Driving is the cheapest and easiest option for Formula 1 teams as it is done by their in-house team, rather than an external company.

Each team owns a fleet of articulated trucks, and yes Mercedes does use Mercedes trucks. In it was reported that there were trucks in total used by the teams, F1, the FIA, and Pirelli. These trucks transport anything and everything to the European races. This includes cars, IT equipment, mechanical equipment, spare parts, as well as motor homes and team bases. These trucks usually drive non-stop until they reach their destination. These trucks carry everything needed for a successful race weekend, and they leave the track as soon as whatever they need to carry is packed and ready to go.

Once the trucks get to the next track, they wait for the unpacking team to unload their cargo, and the whole process will get repeated once the race finishes. Flying equipment out to a race is expensive because teams have to charter cargo planes to fly everything there. Even though teams share the cost of the planes, it is still a costly and not very carbon friendly mode of transport.

As a result, planes are only used to transport equipment to races where it is not possible to drive to in a few days. Therefore, equipment will be flown out to races that do not take place in Europe and the races in Azerbaijan and Russia. The planes are usually chartered by Formula 1 in conjunction with DHL, and the teams are then charged for their share of the cargo space.

The equipment is sent out in order of necessity at the other track. The panelling, IT equipment and any other things needed in the garage are usually sent out first, as the set-up teams need to make sure the garage is in working order.

They do this so the cars and other mechanical equipment like the wheel guns can be brought into a working environment. The mechanics and engineers need to arrive at a fully working garage, so the garage components are the first things to get to the new track.

Teams bring everything that they need for the race weekend, including generators, motor homes, and pretty much anything else you can think of. For example, Williams needs around m of cables to support their IT equipment of 64 computers as well as all the other equipment like wheel guns, spare parts, etc.

For the non-fly-away races, three things have to be assembled by Formula 1 teams. These are the team motorhome, the race base, and the garage. The Williams set-up crew consists of 34 people who assemble everything within 48 hours. Furthermore, Formula 1 must construct its broadcast center, and Pirelli the tire manufacturer and provider also builds its own motorhome at the track. In order to make things fair and to ensure that there are not a lot of people around when trucks are unloading, teams can only start to assemble everything they need once all the cargo is at the track.

The motorhomes are very impressive double to triple story structures, complete with anything and everything needed to entertain guests and to keep the drivers and staff fed and entertained. They contain fully-equipped kitchens and restaurants. Most of them have rooftop seating areas with comfortable outdoor furniture and even plants.

It is constructed out of kg pounds of timber, kg pounds of glass and bolts and is square metres. Some of the rooms are fully built and have pre-built cabling in the walls, making assembly quicker and easier. For the Monaco Grand Prix in , Red Bull decided to take their motorhome transportation to the next level. Due to the space constraints in Monaco, they built the entire energy station on a floating barge.

The structure was put together in Italy and then sailed 20 miles down the Mediterranean coast to Monaco. The whole thing weighed kg pounds , and it had to be carefully manoeuvred past superyachts in the Monaco harbour.

The motorhomes also contain rooms for the drivers to relax in between sessions as well as office space for team employees. Take a look at some of the motorhomes in this video made by Formula 1. There have been some talks about scrapping the use of motorhomes in a bid to curb the carbon emissions of Formula 1.

As the motorhomes are so large, they need multiple trucks to transport them all around Europe. The issue of transporting motorhomes is exacerbated by the fact that the F1 calendar is not structured in such a way that it minimizes the distance traveled.