F1 Chief Mechanic Answers F1 Car Questions | Tech Support | WIRED

0:00 Hi, I'm Matt Dean, Chief Mechanic at Mercedes-AMG Patronus Formula 1 team, and I'm here to answer your questions from the internet. This is F1 Mechanic Support. This question is from the Tools subreddit. Mechanics, what is your favourite 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 favourite 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 get into really confined spaces on the car underneath the bodywork and the fairings and all the winglets on the car. Actually, let's go look at the tools. So one of the favourite tools of the mechanic is the F1 wheel gun. This is used to loosen and tighten the

0:45 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. And this is your regular leaf blower. We use this to cool the engine down as the car comes into the pit box and also to cool the brakes. So we've worked with IronHell on this tool to ensure

1:31 we get the maximum airflow 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 YGG. Dumbest way you've ever lost a tool. I probably shouldn't say this if Toto's watching, but I was putting a fuel cell to the car, which made out of a Kevlar, very flexible material. You put the fuel bag into the car and you've got to 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 realised I'd lost my

2:21 hammer and it was left in the fuel system. We've had other issues where tools have fallen out of mechanics' hands and have gone down in between the V of the engine and the gearbox bell housing and all the rest of the mechanics just look at each other and go, oh my God, now we've got to 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 Cora 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 of Bricksworth and the driver. It's a team sport, and that's why everybody works together to try and get those final tenths of a second

3:10 out of the track time. This is from Fogarty 4, how to become a Formula 1 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 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 4s, move their way up to Formula 3, Formula 2. So it's a great training ground for mechanics. And then once you get to us in Formula 1, you know how to use your spanners, you know how to use taut wrenches. You've gone through your training, you've dabbled with bicycles when you were a kid, you've worked on your

3:55 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 got to 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 2, Formula 3, they support a lot of the F1 races, so... It's great, you're in there, you're travelling with the teams, so you get to know other people. I mean, that's super important. Next thing you've got to deal with is strapping George Russell in the car on the grid. You've got to deal with that pressure and 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?

4:41 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, the driver has an accident into the wall or something fails on the car and 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 got

5:30 to 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 Great Emu War. Explain like on 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

6:18 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. win. So this is a question from Calva Source. 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

7:05 are trying to repair, say, George's car, then we'll take mechanics off of Kimmy'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 iron hell so we use some tools like this this is great for when the car comes in 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

7:50 and fix the car and get it back out on track we also use iron hell fans that's 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 is from consistent box 4430. No touching the car rules. The no touching car rules applies to Park Fermi and curfew times. So curfew times start 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. Then we have to be away from the circuit again. This all started back in the day where the 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 a lot of work at the track and often the guys will be working all night and then they send get to

8:39 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 ferme. 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 10 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

9:25 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 guy's diving. 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. 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

10:12 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 Von Schitzelberg. 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 evolved to be looking exactly the same. CowboyN7 asks, do F1 teams have specific groups and 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

11:01 the engineers that are telling all us guys what to do. Overall, the car is 15 mechanics that are working on each car. Next question is 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 on to 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 tyres to the compound of tyre that we've started the race on. But you can do that at any point during the race. The car will come in, it's my job and the rest of the team to

11:47 make sure we get the right tyres 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 the wheel off and then you've got the other guy with a 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 they will 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 at around about 2.2 seconds. So next question is at Torque Fierston 039. 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,

12:33 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 Harvey XO. 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

13:20 for that to repair the cars and make sure the bodywork 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 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

14:08 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 Wolf 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 garage is 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 braking 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,

14:55 because then we're going to try and build them. So there is a little bit of chaos, but it's organized chaos. Next question is from Relative Manonoff. 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 or the sensors. They're in your day-to-day road car anyway. Energy recovery systems that we use in an 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 fibre, 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 1 which grinds your gears when you hear it? Yeah, I heard a great, great one the other day. It was from

15:40 a comedian. He turned around and said the front jack man was probably one of the highest paid jobs there is at the moment because 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 Kimmy's crew will service Kimmy. That's not true. both sets of mechanics come in to do the pit stop on a Sunday, which is great because you've got both

16:26 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 the race. That's everything for today. Thanks for watching. Chief Mechanic Support.