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Location and timing also influence the task for mechanics. Crash damage is usually higher at a street track, where logistically getting a damaged car back swiftly can be tougher because of fewer access roads.
“Jeddah is a track where I can’t watch a qualifying lap on the screen, where you’re so close to a wall, the tiniest nick can cause the biggest damage,” Middleton said of the race in Saudi Arabia. “Towards the end of the season it can be tiring, towards the end of a tripleheader, you’re repairing in the field, so if you’ve had a few bumps or wear and tear you’re losing spares, regardless of a crash, so by the end of that you’re up against it.”
A driver crashing when there is a short turnaround time between sessions also heightens the stress.
“The highest pressure is between third practice and qualifying as it’s a short window, and if you don’t qualify you’re at the back,” Cherry said. “We did have a driver, a long time ago, Vitaly Petrov, who had a habit of coming unstuck and had a real talent of doing it in third practice, where there are only two hours to prepare the car before qualifying. He’d go out, the car would be destroyed. I think he took three corners off the car in China: the floor’s damaged, the bodywork, the wings, we’d had an air-box fire in the engine, it was a mess.”
The team, though, fixed the car in time for qualifying, and it is those situations where the camaraderie comes through.
“No one wants an accident, but if there’s any fuss, people secretly enjoy it,” Cherry said. “Given enough time and information, most people can do anything, including building an F1 car: If you’ve got the manual and the documentation you’d get there, it’s just how long it’d take to get there. That’s where people earn their money: It’s doing it in a high-pressure situation, working fast and pushing to make a deadline, but it still needs to be right.”
