Travelling to the Track in Style

Each team has up to 100 of its personnel attend the race meeting. Their methods of travel vary according to role and status – hey, Formula One teams don’t operate on socialist principles. Most of the mechanics travel by standard scheduled or specially chartered flights to the airport nearest the track. Typically, a team of scouts arrives a day or so early to organise hire cars and mini-buses that pick up team members from the airport. Senior engineers and commercial high-ups may travel business class – or even first class, along with the team boss. But then again, the team boss could well be travelling on board his own private jet. Most of the top drivers travel by private jet, too, but you do get the odd down-to-earth soul that insists on travelling commercially, Jaguar’s Mark Webber being the most notable. But then, he’s an Aussie and has little time for the trappings. At the venue, the drivers are given a road car to use. These cars come from the manufacturer the driver’s team is in partnership with. The McLaren drivers, therefore, drive around in Mercedes-Benz; the Ferrari drivers in Fiats or Lancias; the Renault drivers in Renaults; the Toyota drivers in Lexus’, and so on.
At some race locations, the journey from hotel to track may be too long or traffic-infested for the convenience of drivers or team bosses. In these cases, chartered helicopters are use instead of road cars. The top hotels these people stay in invariably have helipads, as do all the circuits.