SAF1 TEAM 2007 CHINESE GRAND PRIX PREVIEW
An Interview with Nick Haworth, Operations Director,
MSL Global
Qu: Nick, catering for a Formula One team is a tough
task. How do you plan for a season?
NH: We know how many races there are in advance and we usually
start the season with three fly-away races. We begin planning
in November and prepare the freight to be sent out by the
middle of December. We send three identical sets of kit, namely
our ovens, refrigerators, tables, crockery, everything we
need to set up a traveling restaurant. These are shipped to
Australia, Malaysia and Bahrain in the SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM
sea freight. We rent some elements locally, such as the televisions
that we have in the hospitality units. There are also two
types of fly-aways to consider when packing the electrical
goods; the 110 volts and the 220 volts power supply countries.
I plan the food supplies three races ahead. For the Australian
Grand Prix, for example, I will start calling our local contacts
in January. Our contact will then supply all of the food that
we require directly to us at the circuit. For the European
races we have central distribution base in Stuttgart. There
is an MSL Global staff member who maintains our supply of
fruit, vegetables, tractor units etc. We carry out a stock
take in the motorhome on a Sunday night after the race and
then on the Monday our man in Stuttgart receives an order
from us for the next event. The order arrives on a Tuesday
at the circuit of the following Grand Prix weekend and we
then prepare the menus. It is quite involved, but we have
been doing this for many years now and so we have the routine
down to a fine art!
Qu: There are over 50 people on the race team, of
differing nationalities, how do you cope with this scale of
catering?
NH: We are an international caterer so even though the majority
of the race team is English and we are a Japanese team we
have two chefs who can turn their hand to any dish. We make
all of our own Japanese food and it is in some ways easier
than making the Western cuisine. If Taku gives it the thumbs-up
we must be doing something right! We talk to the drivers and
team physio to ensure that we produce what they want and also
to the team to ensure that they are happy, as they are away
from home for a long time. We also like to provide an individual
and personal touch if someone in the team has a specific request,
for example Daniel (Audetto) likes to eat a certain type of
spaghetti dish, so we have to be flexible to accommodate for
these requests.
Qu: How do the logistics differ for European based
races?
NH: We have five trucks that altogether weigh an average
of 160 tonnes. They piggy back each race whilst our refrigerator
truck drives back to Germany to pick up the new supplies.
We are quite lucky that we have one of the simpler motorhome
set-ups in the Paddock when it comes to the back-to-back races.
This makes it a lot easier for us to turn around the motorhomes
in a short period of time. All in all, European versus fly-away
races is much more complicated logistically.
Qu: You prepare approx 13 meals over a race weekend,
17 times a year, how do you decide what to cook?
NH: We prepare the same breakfast menu every morning as this
is the main meal of day. There is never a lot of time for
the team to eat lunch so we provide a light meal such as a
pasta dish and salad. We have two types of evening meal; the
‘grab and go’ and the working dinner. For the
‘grab and go’ we would chose almost the opposite
of the local dishes, because it is highly likely that the
team ate one of them at a restaurant the night before we start
catering for them in the Paddock. We vary the menu at every
race to accommodate for this and also have a particular theme
for the late Friday night working dinner, for example a curry
night, medieval feast with hog roast, a Chinese take-away,
it makes dinner time fun after a hard day. We are constantly
asking the team what else they may want and if it is shepherd’s
pie or lasagna then we will make it. We try not to over complicate
the food, just make it wholesome and nourishing. Generally
speaking I believe that they are happy.
QU: And how do you decide on the team Guests menu?
NH: We have two chefs with us at SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM. Mike
Smith is the Head Chef and he is primarily focused on the
team’s Guest menu. Scott Young is our team chef in Europe,
but when it comes to the fly-away races they work together
on all the catering. They have very diverse talents and are
extremely good at what they do.
For the Guest menu we cook a local dish of the day. Mike
is incredibly creative and adaptable. He sometimes decides,
on a daily basis, what the Guest menu will be. If it is hot
weather he will develop a cool dish, for example. We obviously
have to use the supplies that we have ordered for that particular
race, but we can be very flexible with the menu over the weekend.
Qu: How do you source your food supplies in China?
NH: When China was announced as a new race on the calendar,
I traveled over to China for a ‘recce' with the chef
at the circuit. We traveled around looking at hotels, sourced
directions to the best supermarkets and introduced ourselves
to the managers. They then gave us a list of their produce,
which we use as our basic shopping list. Our contacts have
kept a note of everything that we ordered last year and so
this week we amended those lists to our current requirements
and sent them back to them. The goods were delivered to the
circuit on Tuesday morning.
Qu: Is there anything peculiar about the race in
Shanghai for you?
NH: The driving! We work extremely long ours setting up and
packing away the catering everyday and so it is nice to be
able to get into our bus and be chauffeured too and from our
hotel so we can sleep en route! The style of writing the Chinese
language makes shopping more difficult than say in a European
country. As the characters are so different to ours, we require
a translator for our ordering needs. But as we have been to
China a couple of times now this is getting easier and I now
know what we require. The next exciting race for us of course
will be Singapore and I will travel there for a recce soon
after the 2008 Australian Grand Prix. But it is quite formulaic,
after you have done one race, you can tick it off and go on
to next one.
They are a great bunch of people at SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM and
we are very much included in the team. This is very important,
especially for the front of house crew, and means that we
enjoy our work.
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