DHL delays delivery of single-seaters to several teams in China

Doubt hangs over the pit lane in China: will all the teams have their cars for testing? The reason: freight problems in Melbourne. Ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, the FIA has made a number of adjustments to the regulations submitted by the F1 teams in response to « logistical » concerns.

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No fewer than four teams saw their cargo set aside due to technical issues with the planes departing from Melbourne. The teams involved are McLaren, Aston Martin, Mercedes, and Red Bull. However, some other teams are also affected by these equipment issues.

How does a team organize itself to send all its equipment?

Just after the podium, the mechanics are busy packing everything up to be sent to the next race location.

The freight normally arrives on Monday night or early Tuesday morning. This gives them time to properly prepare the cars for Friday.

The teams affected by these issues have been informed that their equipment would not be in Shanghai before 10 a.m. today at the earliest. The carrier later updated a few hours later saying not before 5 p.m. today, DHL indicated.

There is also a large portion of equipment that is transported by cargo, but these are less important yet necessary items. Some shipments have arrived, but we are far from the target.

As a reminder, the car is dismantled by 75% before being packed and shipped. For example, gearboxes and engines are sent in containers separately. It’s only in Europe where the processes are different, with cars and equipment traveling by truck.

All the mechanics are currently in their hotels, having lost more than 32 hours of work.

This is not the first time that this kind of mishap has happened.

This remains very debilitating for the whole team, which will likely have to work very quickly with constant stress throughout the night and tomorrow, as the car needs to be ready before Friday morning.

Reassembling and setting up the car in 1 day instead of 3 can often lead to issues and rushed errors that often have disastrous consequences. To address this, the FIA has reduced the curfew imposed on F1 teams for one night before the Chinese Grand Prix.

Another important note: China is a country that heavily restricts arrivals, conducting multiple checks, and here too, there could be additional delays. Furthermore, China complicates communications, as WhatsApp is banned, as are Instagram and Google; Facebook is restricted. The same goes for VPNs, which are all blocked.

The China is the first Grand Prix of the year with the sprint format, so only one practice for the teams, which could also complicate things in the race for points.

The cars are missing, but for the teams that already have them, the shipment of tires has still not arrived. In a note addressed to the 10 teams due to difficulties encountered by Pirelli, which has caused delays for the championship’s tire supplier.

Excerpt from the note: « The following concessions will be granted: on Wednesday, and for this event only, the curfew period will be reduced by a period of five and a half (5.5) hours for a maximum of six (6) operational staff members solely for the purpose of preparing the tires after tire fitting from the tire supplier. »

All F1 teams must observe a curfew starting at 11:30 PM during the nights of Grand Prix weekends, during which they are prohibited from working on their cars. Consequently, the curfew will be six hours for Wednesday night only.

This obviously reminds us of Baku, where a team had almost no incoming cargo: they arrived on Wednesday night, and the mechanics worked tirelessly all night, and by Thursday noon the car was ready.

However, the Chinese government is making every effort possible to minimize the damage, with the aim of ensuring a television success for this race, by promoting Guoyuan Zhou as a national pride.

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