Prep school

How condensed schedules are putting added pressure on teams

- LEENA GADE

Earlier this year I wrote a column on how IMSA had put restrictions on the number of personnel allowed at the track this year due to the pandemic. Limited to 15 team members per car, we had gone into Daytona not knowing anything different as that was all we had anyway. We hadn’t had to reduce our numbers because we already run a lean team, so were able to make the best of it and performed pretty well. But if you are used to having 30 people per car it’s more of a challenge. You have to think about which jobs to cut out, or work out who can do two jobs, and what they should be.

We are now allowed a team of 35 people, but that’s the full team. We are a few races in and this is when it gets hard. The same people have been working on the cars between events as we have had to run a lean ship back at base because of all the travel restrictions. Because racecars require a lot of attention to detail, that small team has to work incredibly hard. Now, when we get back to the shop after an event, the same team that has just worked the race has to strip back the car to analyse everything from a lifing perspective.

You also have to fine tune everything because the cars take a battering at the racetrack. Bodywork is damaged from stone chips, contact or kerbs and it all needs to be fixed before the next race.

Three in a row