2007 US GRAND PRIX PREVIEW - An Interview with Mick Ainsley-Cowlishaw,
Team Manager
Q: Mick, we are heading to the US Grand Prix straight
from Montréal. What are the issues you face with such
a short turnaround?
MAC: With the two fly-aways being so close together it is
incredibly difficult for the team logistically because we're
working on such a short time scale. Having to pack your freight
on a Sunday night means you're going to be working late and
then on Monday morning we have an early flight out to Indianapolis;
we leave the hotel at 07.00. We won't finish packing up the
cars and garage until about 22.30 tonight. Then we are straight
back to work on Tuesday morning when the freight arrives,
which is coming by road, at the Speedway in Indianapolis.
We have an initial crew who will go in to the track to break
down the freight and start setting up the garage. The rest
of the mechanics and the engineers arrive on Tuesday afternoon
and Wednesday morning.
Q: So you are very short of time! How do you turn
around parts that need to be checked or obtain new ones to
replace the irreparable?
MAC: It is much more difficult here in North America because
of the time difference to the UK. When we finish work here
the team in the UK are in bed, so it's much harder to get
parts out to us than it is when we're in Bahrain, for example,
or at a race where time's not up against you. Turning around
parts, testing them for faults and the such like is very difficult,
so what we do when we're going away for a double-header is
try to bring as many spares with us as we can so we don't
have to do anything to the used parts. The rear uprights,
gear ratios, and all those types of things you try to bring
enough spares with you so you can just exchange them at the
next race.
Q: SAF1 Team usually take three trucks of freight
to the European races. What is the difference between packing
for a European race and the fly-aways?
MAC: The major difference that we experience is that most
of the freight is flown to the race on an aircraft. The cars
have to be boxed up and palleted along with all of the freight.
These pallets are then put onto a cargo plane that flies out
of the UK. As we have a back-to-back race with the US Grand
Prix the freight is going by road from Canada to America,
but then it's flown back to the UK. We carry about 22 tonnes
of freight, which sounds like a large amount, but compared
to the other teams in the pitlane it's the minimum. However
the situation is still better that when we are in Monaco,
because even though we’ve got the trucks with us there,
we have to unload every nut and bolt off of them and pack
them in the garage, because once you've unloaded the trucks
they disappear for a week and you don't see them again until
Sunday at about 20:00. In Montréal our situation is
not too bad because we have what's called the ‘Track
Shacks’, which are like little garages where you can
keep your kit. You don't have to unpack it, you just open
the door and take out the few bits and pieces that you need.
Most of the freight is all in ‘pack horses’ –
freight boxes which you load and unload. Each ‘pack
horse’, and also each pallet, has an invoice with a
value attached to it. You weigh the pallets and then when
you do the pack-up on the Sunday night after the race the
customs people know exactly what is in which pallet. We have
six pallets and three cars that have to be packed away.
Q: But you also send freight by sea don’t you?
Why do you do this?
MAC: Yes, that is true and we try to send more sea freight
to the fly-aways because of the cost. Sea freight works out
at approximately four times less in cost per kilogramme compared
to air freight, which is a massive saving over a year. But
you obviously have to prepare this freight to leave the factory
two months in advance of the race as it takes much longer
to get there, so we have to have three times as much kit for
different shipments. The first sea shipment goes to Australia,
the second to Malaysia and the final one goes to Bahrain.
Obviously they have to leave at different times and so we
have three different sets of kit distributed to these areas.
The one that then comes back first you turn around and send
out to Canada. The one that comes back to the UK from Malaysia
gets turned around and sent to the US. And then later in the
year, for Japan and China, you pack the freight that you need
from the one that gets back from Canada and then do the same
with the one from the US. It's an ongoing project and we try
to include more and more in the sea freight because the cost
of a 40-foot container is considerably cheaper to ship than
to fly. Hopefully we will be able to send much more by sea,
get more equipment made as we grow because we're a young team
that is still learning the ropes on that side of things.
Q: Does the Indianapolis Speedway have any peculiarities
in terms of garage set-up and freight logistics?
MAC: ‘Indy’ is a strange one really because it
is a modern facility, but it is lacking in a few areas. The
offices are situated a long way from the garages and setting
up our IT connections, for example, is a big problem. Surprisingly,
the garages do not provide any compressed air, so we have
to buy our own compressors for blowing on the brakes and using
the ‘car lifts’ for example. But the facilities
in Indy are very good and the track is an interesting one
for the drivers. We also have great support from the fans
in the US and so we are really looking forward to it.
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