Gone are the days when teams with virtually unlimited financial resources achieved success in Formula 1. However, this is not always the case; suffice it to recall the example of Toyota, which did not win a single race in eight seasons.
But now that team budgets are tight, everyone is on a more or less equal footing, and those who spend their money more wisely and efficiently get an advantage. Among other things, they are less likely to place orders with outside suppliers for the manufacture of certain parts, simply because it is cheaper to produce the necessary parts in-house. Although of course this is not always possible.
But the point is that now those championship participants who manage to do the most effective work at the base come to the fore, and at the same time it is extremely important to learn how to plan everything correctly.
One of the most obvious examples of miscalculation in this area came in Australia, when the Williams team were able to field only one car at the start. Only Alex Albon took part in the race, while Logan Sargent had to miss that stage because one of the FW46s was damaged in practice and Williams simply did not have a spare chassis.
In preparation for the season, the team management consciously took a risk by choosing as a priority the production of technical innovations rather than spare parts, but the circumstances were such that they had to pay for this decision.
Other teams, however, followed a similar tactic at the start of the season, they were just luckier. Even if they had a spare chassis, the shortage could manifest itself in something else. McLaren in particular does not say which spare parts they had problems with and when, but they do not deny that they too were in a difficult situation.
“Sometimes you have to accept inconvenience,” admits McLaren’s Chief Operating Officer Piers Thynne. “We wouldn’t put the car on track if we didn’t have spare parts, but if you have a trailer full of spare parts, you don’t earn championship points. Essentially, you have to make compromises and assess risks. If you don’t, you’re just going to make more losses, and that’s not the way to win races.”
Tinn has been working at McLaren for a long time and is responsible for everything related to production. He and his men decide which parts of the machine should be stored in what quantity and when they should be released. Given that the total number of parts in production at the same time is 10-12 thousand, it is clear that it is very difficult to plan and distribute everything correctly.
“We have been trying to save on everything for the past five years and are slowly approaching a certain limit,” Tinn continues. – We will never unnecessarily produce a component twice, but we have to make compromises. We would like to have everything at once, but the limited budget does not allow this. But if we decide to produce something, we also have to understand what can be sacrificed?
We always make decisions based on how it will affect the results. We can move away from producing a few components that are needed for one specific track, in favor of parts that will earn us points on several tracks. The most important thing is to correctly assess possible risks.
This is not always possible, but we continuously analyse the decisions taken to adapt our production programme to the circumstances.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
