My Race Weekend

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• 26/08/2011

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A new feature to the LRGP website, My Race Weekend offers an insight into the daily working lives of the race team personnel who travel to each stop on the F1 calendar. In the first of the series, we speak to Chief Mechanic Gavin Hudson, who tells us what the weekend in Spa-Francorchamps had in store for him.

Thursday
Thursday was a pretty full day, all in all. We had to build up the cars with any new parts, as we had a van full of goodies which arrived at the track in the morning.

My role includes ensuring everyone has the drawings for these new parts before they are distributed to be fitted.

A key Thursday feature is always the scrutineering of the cars. For this to take place, the cars were in in a state to be seen by the FIA at 15:00.

On Thursday evening we put the cars on the legality bridge and checked that all the parts fitted correctly within the prescribed limits. Shortly after this, it was pit stop practice!

For pit stop practice on Thursdays we always try to make it quite relaxed and a bit of fun. Nowadays the pitstops are so critical. Pit stop practices had got to a point where it was so intense it was proving detrimental to the overall performance, so we tried to inject a little bit more enjoyment, whilst at the same time practising the routines.

By Thursday night in Spa, the cars were finished and ready for the first runs of the weekend on Friday morning.

Friday
On Friday morning we did another pit stop practice session; everyone seemed relaxed and focused after going through all the routines the previous day.

Generally speaking, if everything is running smoothly in the sessions I should not have much to do. I always oversee both cars and I am there to step in and make any difficult decisions, such as which gearbox to fit or which parts need to be fitted.

Between the two sessions one of my biggest jobs was checking with the engineers to see if the data from the first session had highlighted anything which needed investigation or replacement before the next session. I then made sure that the car crews had a job list showing them the work that needed to be done to the cars.

Another job I have to do between sessions is to ensure that everyone gets lunch when any of the crew have to work right through, even if it means fetching them a sandwich; it's hungry work if you have to work all day!

In terms of procedure, the second practice was very similar to the first, and after that it was time to speak to all the engineers again and create another job list.

On Friday, everything should be in place with no surprises unless there are any incidents with either car out on track.

We changed a lot of parts, such as the engine, gearbox exhausts, as there are certain parts which are designated for the race only,

On Friday night, the FIA unsealed our race gearboxes so we could fit the ratios we wanted for the race, after which the FIA resealed them. I liaised with the gearbox guys to ensure this ran smoothly.

We always have a Friday gearbox and a race gearbox. When the Friday gearbox comes off, I look at all the life of all the parts to see what has to go back to the factory to be serviced.

Friday is typically our busiest day. In Spa, we started around 7am and worked late. Sometimes we work up until the curfew which is 2am the following morning.

Saturday
On Saturday and Sunday the workload is always less, so I started to look ahead to the next event.

First thing on Saturday morning we did pit stop practice again, which is very much part of our daily routine.

I started making plans so that everyone knew what was going to happen after the race in terms of what would have to be stripped off the car, what would need to go back to the factory, what would be used again and so on.

I worked with Paul Seaby on this, and all the departments got a job list and a guide for what jobs would need doing after the race, although this was obviously dependant on what would happen to the car in qualifying and in the race.

If P3 was to go okay, then we would have two hours until qualifying when we would bleed the brakes, fit new exhaust collectors and have a good look over the car.

Once qualifying started we can't work on the cars as you can't change anything without applying to the FIA. If there are any problems in qualifying we can apply to the FIA to change things if we find anything amiss.

We have to ensure the cars have their covers on – meaning they can't be worked on – by the deadline of 18:30 on Saturday evening

So Friday is a manic day, then on Saturday if there's an accident in P3 you can be absolutely flat out till qualifying, but after that it's relatively calm.

Sunday
We came in on Sunday morning and the FIA took the covers off at 9am, then we had a five-hour period to get things ready for the race.

This involved me working on my laptop making plans, and on top of that I worked through a checklist of things such as ensuring that the traffic light system worked.

We did a short pit stop practice on race day morning to get everyone warmed up, then about half an hour before the pit lane opened, the intensity increased again with everyone embarking on their race duties.

In the race itself, my role is to oversee things. We went to the grid and I switched between the two cars and spoke to the number one mechanics to check that everything was going okay ahead of what was Bruno's first race with us.

Then, of course there were the pit stops during the race (of which there were a few!). We're always hopeful that these go smoothly.

After the race I liaised with the FIA on any checks they wanted to do. As we finished in the top ten, they weighed Vitaly's car. This was followed by the usual fuel samples, front wing deflection tests and other checks.

To finish my race weekend, I filled in all the fault lists, and made the necessary amendments to the lists in terms of what needed to be replaced on the car.

Then, before I knew it, it was time to take the transport back to the airport and catch the flight home. So, it was goodbye to Spa-Francorchamps for another year.

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