F1 Chief Mechanic Answers F1 Car Questions

Hi, I'm Matt Deane, Chief Mechanic

at Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One team

and I'm here to answer your questions from the internet.

This is F1 mechanic support.

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This question is from the Tools Subreddit.

Mechanics, what is your favorite or most underrated tool?

Some of the tools that we actually use

are quite different to what you would use

on a regular car.

They can be quite small.

A big mechanic's favorite is this one.

It's called a bit driver.

Super low profile,

we can change the bits over it quite easily

and it's really good to getting into

really confined spaces on the car

underneath the body work and the fairings

and all the winglets on the car.

Actually, let's go and have a look at the tools.

So one of the favorite tools of the mechanic

is the F1 wheel gun.

This is used to loosen and tighten the wheel nut up itself.

Unlike regular road cars, we only have one wheel nut.

So as the car comes in,

the mechanic has to line this wheel gun up

with the wheel nut.

He goes on, pulls the trigger.

As he comes off, changes direction on the wheel gun.

New wheel is fitted,

and then he comes back in,

pulls the trigger to tighten the wheel nut up.

Once he's finished,

he's lifting the wheel gun up in the air,

pressing the button here to acknowledge

that that wheel nut is tight

and the car can leave the pit box.

All of this happens in less than 2.2 seconds.

This is your regular leaf blower.

We use this to cool the engine down

as a car comes into the pit box

and also to cool the brakes.

So we've worked with Einhell on this tool

to ensure we get the maximum air flow

through the brake ducts

and through the radiators of the car

to cool them down as quick as possible.

So now I've showed you a couple of the tools,

let's get back to some more questions.

Our next question is from WyGG,

Dumbest way you've ever lost a tool?

Probably shouldn't say this if Toto's watching,

but I was fitting a fuel cell to the car,

which are made out of a Kevlar very flexible material.

You put the fuel bag into the car

and you've gotta get your hands right in the corners

to try and get the fuel bag to expand

within the cockpit itself, the chassis itself.

I didn't have long enough arms, so I used a hammer,

a rubber hammer.

Used it, poked the fuel bag out, fitted the fuel bag fine,

fitted the rest of the fuel system,

buttoned all the top hatches on so it was all ready to go,

sent the car out

and it was probably about a race later

that I'd realized I'd lost my hammer

and it was left in the fuel system.

We've had other issues where tools have fallen out

of mechanics' hands and they've gone down in between

the V of the engine and the gearbox bellhousing

and all the rest of the mechanics just look at each other

thinking, oh god,

now we've gotta pretty much take the whole car apart

to try and fish this socket or the spanner

out of where this mechanic's dropped the tool,

so normally he's buying the beers on that evening.

A Quora user asks,

What is more important in Formula One,

the car or the driver?

Obviously, we as mechanics would say the car.

Drivers will say themselves.

An age old question, really.

Everything has to work together,

the car, the engineers, everybody back at the factory,

the engine side at Brixworth, and the driver.

It's a team sport and that's why everybody works together

to try and get those final tenths of the second

out of the track time.

This is from fogarty4,

How to become a Formula One mechanic.

I get asked that question a lot

and I think the best advice that I could give you is

learn how to use spanners, learn how to use ratchets,

and whether that's from when you're a little kid

repairing bicycles, repairing motorbikes, building go-karts,

there are a number of colleges

and there's a couple of colleges at Silverstone I believe

that, you know, you can go there, you can train,

but actually getting that hands-on experience is vital.

We often take people from the lower formulas.

They start in Formula Ford,

moving their way up to Formula Three, Formula Two,

so it's a great training ground for mechanics,

and then once you get to us in Formula One,

you know how to use your spanners.

You know how to use torque wrenches.

You've gone through your training.

You've dabbled with bicycles when you were a kid.

You've worked on your motorbikes.

You've worked on your go-kart.

You've gone to college.

You've got all your qualifications.

What do you do next? You've gotta get yourself seen.

Pester me. Pester the guys that are working on the team.

Drop them some emails.

Get yourself noticed out there,

but certainly, you know,

if you're working in the lower formulas,

Formula Two, Formula Three,

they support a lot of the F1 races, so it's great.

You're in there.

You're traveling with the teams

so you get to know other people.

I mean, that's super important.

Next thing that you've gotta deal with is

strapping George Russell in the car on the grid.

You've gotta deal with that pressure and, you know,

getting used to the amount of people around you,

the cameras and dealing with all that side of Formula One,

the travel and just working within a team environment,

being a good team player.

From gonzo5622,

Do F1 mechanics get angry when their driver crashes?

Yes, definitely, some more than others.

I try and remain calm,

but there's a lot of the guys, the younger ones especially,

they can get quite upset about it.

Obviously, we're at the end of the chain.

There's thousands of people back at the factory

producing all the car parts for us to assemble.

The car goes out on track.

If the driver has an accident into the wall

or something fails on the car,

then it's an awful lot of work for us

to start putting that car back together

and we have to do it often after P1 or P2.

There's a short amount of time for us to repair those cars

so it's all hands on deck to get that finished

and the car back out on track.

So next one's from Mean_Divide_490,

Explain like I'm five,

why are F1 drivers hot if wind is coming at them

at 200 to 300 kilometers per hour?

Often we're working in places like Singapore, Qatar,

where the ambient is, you know, 34, can be 38 degrees.

You've gotta remember these drivers are sat

in a really confined space.

They've got an engine that's running behind them,

incredible high temperatures.

They've got the brakes that are raging hot in front of them

and they've got all these electrical boxes

that sit around them

so the temperatures in the car can get as high as

48, 50 degrees

and in fact now the drivers are wearing cool suits

to try and cool them down during the race.

Also there's small ducts in the side of the car

that blow cool air over the drivers

to try and cool them down during the race,

but you'll see in often races

the drivers will get out the car,

they're absolutely maxed out.

They're so hot they can hardly stand

when they get out of these cars.

Our next question is from greatemuwar,

Explain like I'm five, in Formula One,

why aren't all the drivers given the same car

to test who is the fastest?

It's kind of Formula One really.

Each car is designed by a different team

so they will always interpret the rules differently,

and also we've got different engine manufacturers

so it's not a one-make series.

Everybody designs their own car

and it's who does the best job will win.

So this is a question from kalvesaus,

How does F1 team manage to repair their cars

in under a week after a horrible crash?

Often we have to do it in a lot less than a week.

Our shortest time period over a race weekend

is from P3 to qualifying, which is three hours,

so we have to repair that car in that time.

Parts will obviously come back to the factory then

to get made again, but yeah,

we're often rebuilding cars in less than three hours.

If we have a big accident

and we do have to repair the car in three hours,

then what we'll try to do is pull some of the mechanics

off the other car.

Obviously, we have two cars in the garage.

We've got a group of 15 mechanics on one car,

same on the other,

so if we are trying to repair, say, George's car,

then we'll take mechanics off of Kimi's car

to start rebuilding that one.

I remember there was a time in Monaco

where we were a very short period of time

to get the car ready for qualifying.

We literally had two people on one of the cars

and everybody else was on that one

trying to get it ready for qualifying.

So next one's from mgreen888,

What hand tool brands do F1 mechanics use?

Lots of teams up and down the pit lane

are using a variety of tools,

but above and beyond the normal spanners

and the torque wrenches, ratchets that you see,

we'll work with different partners

and one of our partners is Einhell.

So we use some tools like this.

This is great for when the car comes in

and it might have a little bit of damage

that we need to just trim off,

and then use this super fast-setting glue

to try and fix the car and get it back out on track.

We also use Einhell fans.

They're to cool the chassis down and the brakes

when the car comes into the pits.

So yeah, lots of different types of tools

as well as the normal standards ones

that you would use at home in your garage.

This question's from ConsistentBox4430,

No touching the car rules?

The no touching car rules applies to park firme

and curfew times.

So curfew time starts on a Wednesday.

The car cover goes on the car

and we have to be away from the circuit

for a certain amount of time, around about 13 hours,

and then we'll come back in on the Thursday.

We'll work to a certain time,

and then we have to be away from the circuit again.

This all started back in the day

where support that we got from the factories

wasn't quite as good as what it is these days

so we had to do an awful lot of work at the track

and often the guys would be working all night,

and then they'd get to work on the car the next day.

They haven't had any sleep

so it's really done for safety reasons.

Then the other side of it is the non-work in the part firme.

After qualifying, the rule is that you cannot

touch anything on the car.

You can't work on the car at all.

We can take body work off.

We can examine. We can change fluids on the car,

but actually physically changing any of the setup

or anything like that we're not allowed to do.

We can do brakes.

We can change fluids on the car,

but mainly it's just a visual check

of everything on the cars.

There's another rule of no touching the car,

if we get a five-second or ten-second penalty

at a pit stop, for instance.

So you may have seen on TV,

the car will come into the pit box.

It'll stop on the marks

and everybody just stands there not doing anything.

Obviously, that's really unnerving for the mechanics,

because they're used to just diving on the car

and getting the pit stop done.

We have a guy with a big sort of kind of lollipop

that goes over the top of the car.

He's there with that, counts down.

As soon as that's lifted, then the guys dive in

and complete the pit stop.

This non-touching rule for the pit stops

is really so that we can serve our penalty

and you don't gain an advantage.

You stop on the marks, serve your penalty,

and then you do the pit stop.

Now, this question's from highonmoon,

What happens to broken F1 car parts?

Well, since the cost cap,

we try and repurpose all of them.

Broken car parts will come back to the factory here.

What we then try and do is salvage as much as we can

to remake the part again.

Often, if parts can't be redone or repurposed,

then they'll get made into some sort of trophies

or memorabilia.

Obviously, in the cost cap regulations

that we have to work to,

everything we spend, if any of the car parts are broken,

it all comes out of the cost cap

so we need to be really careful to manage those parts

and either repurpose them or try to recycle them.

Next one is from vonSchnitzelberg,

Explain like I'm five

why all the F1 race cars look the same?

Because we copy each other,

same as road car manufacturers.

Obviously, everybody's working to super tight regulations.

There's different teams will interpret

some of the rules differently,

but if you have a long stretch of rules

that have been very similar,

as they have been in the last few years,

then the cars all evolve to be looking exactly the same.

Cowboy-N7 asks, Do F1 teams have specific groups

of mechanics that specialize in certain aspects of the car?

Absolutely.

We've got guys that work on the front end of the car,

the rear end of the car, hydraulic systems, gearbox systems,

and obviously there's all the engineers

that are telling all us guys what to do.

Overall, the car has 15 mechanics

that are working on each car.

Next question's from Quora,

Who decides a driver should make a pit stop?

It's definitely not us as mechanics.

We're there to perform the pit stops.

There's a number of strategists back at the factory

in what we call a RSR, race support room,

and then we have a strategist at the track as well.

The guy at the track will be the final call

to make that pit stop,

which then he will speak to the sporting director.

We'll know what set of tires

that we're gonna fit to the car.

The sporting director will come onto me,

and then I will direct all the mechanics out

to perform the pit stop.

We're always mandated to make one pit stop during the race.

We have to fit a different compound of tires

to the compound of tire that we started the race on,

but you can do that at any point during the race.

Car will come in.

It's my job and the rest of the team

to make sure we get the right tires on the right car.

Involved in the pit stop we've got around about 24 people,

three people on each corner and that involves a gunman.

As a car stops, he's gunning that wheel nut off.

The guy taking the wheel off pulls the wheel off,

and then you've got the other guy with the new wheel

will come on with the new wheel.

Gunman then guns that up, presses a button on his gun.

The stop is done.

The car drops down and then he'll be on his way.

We're always trying to do that in around about 2.2 seconds.

Some people try and go faster.

Our philosophy at Mercedes is we try and make sure

every stop is perfect, around about 2.2 seconds.

So our next question is @Tortfeasor039,

Wait... F1 cars have wings?

Yes, and obviously we have to deal with those,

quite a lot of them actually.

Obviously, you've got your front wing, your rear wing,

and then we've got these little tiny winglets

that are on the brake ducts, around the side of the car.

For us, they can be really problematic

and believe it or not, there's one department

here at the factory that just deals with

front and rear wings only.

Obviously, the wings are there to produce downforce.

You're playing with the amount of downforce

you want to get on the car,

the amount of air pressure going down

to make it stick to the track,

and also the amount that you want the wings

to direct air around the car.

It's that fine balance of getting downforce

as well as the slipstream of the car going through the air.

Next one is from HarveyXO,

Do repair costs count towards the cost cap?

Unfortunately, they do.

If you've got a driver that is not great at

keeping the car on the track

or he attracts attention on the track

and gets run into a lot,

then yes, there will be a considerable amount of cost

to the team for that to repair the cars

and make sure all the body work and everything is

renewed and refreshed for the next race.

Next question is from Bledina,

Were F1 garages always this clean?

So I'm taking that you're seeing those garages on TV.

I've seen pictures 1950s

where you've got mechanics smoking in the garages.

They're leaning over the cars,

fueling the cars up while smoking.

Obviously, we wouldn't allow that anymore.

We all become super OCD

and you look around all the F1 garages,

all the F1 headquarters and the operation centers.

Everything has to be perfect

and that's how we try to portray the garages,

how we build the cars.

If we make a mistake, then it can affect the race.

Obviously, we try and keep the garages as clean as we can

so you know where everything is.

You pull the tool drawer out,

all the tools have their specific place

so the mechanics can get to those really quickly,

especially when they're doing changes on the cars

during practice sessions.

We've got Toto Woolf walking through the garage.

If he sees something, then we need to see it before him

so we make sure everything is perfect

and that goes from when you walk

from the back of the garage to the front of the garage.

The only time you might see the garages getting

a little bit dirty and a little bit of chaos

is if we have an accident.

Obviously, if they go off into the gravel,

the cars will almost disintegrate

the front suspension, the brake ducts

all just end up breaking,

so they get brought back to the garage

on a low loader truck.

We wheel it off the truck, and then there's gravel

and rubbish everywhere in the garage

so we've got people trying to sweep that up,

strip the cars as fast as we can,

because then we're gonna try and build them,

so there is a little bit of chaos, but it's organized chaos.

Next question is from relativeromanoff,

An invention from F1 that would be useful in average cars?

Well, I think you're seeing that in day-to-day cars

now anyway.

You've got all the software that goes into the F1 cars,

all the sensors.

They're in your day-to-day road car anyway.

Energy recovery systems that we use in F1,

you've got all your hybrid

same as what's going on in your road car.

Also, some of the materials that we use,

certainly carbon fiber,

you're seeing that more and more in road cars

and not only the high-end road cars.

It's coming into the standard road cars these days.

The next one is from tunatastic369,

What is the biggest lie/myth about Formula One

which grinds your gears when you hear it?

Yeah, I heard a great, great one the other day.

It was from a comedian.

He turned around and said the front jack man

was probably one of the highest paid jobs

there is at the moment,

'cause he's only doing three seconds of work on a Sunday,

which obviously is a lie.

What we have is mechanics that work

right from a Tuesday before a race.

They're working on those cars right up

until the Sunday of the race.

But for us, yeah,

we can make the difference on the Sunday

during that pit stop,

but we've done all the work before,

so practice one, two, three.

The cars have come apart multiple times.

That's one of those times where, yeah,

it's a pretty big myth.

Another myth that I've heard is that

we have two pit stop crews,

so George's pit stop crew would service George

and Kimi's crew will service Kimi.

That's not true.

We have both sets of mechanics come in

to do the pit stop on a Sunday,

which is great, because you've got both crews

working on the same car.

It doesn't matter what driver they've been working with

up until that time.

They all come together

and that's when we can really make a difference

between winning or losing a race.

That's everything for today.

Thanks for watching Chief Mechanic support.

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