Competing in Formula 2 – From workshop to racetrack

The summer break is almost over but the hard work is already underway ahead of Monza with teams and drivers getting ready to return to action. Everyone is at their respective workshops getting prepared, but what actually happens behind closed doors in a Formula 2 team?
The role of a mechanic for instance goes far beyond taking responsibility for a corner of the car at a pitstop, changing the tyres and sending the driver on their way. That is something that is reflected all the way through the team.
Earlier in the year, Invicta Racing opened the doors of their factory in the UK for a look into how Formula 2 teams operate, and eye for detail is taken to a more granular level than ever before.
“It’s very busy, especially with our staff limitations. It’s busy from January really, we don’t get much of a winter now,” Team Principal Andy Roche explains.
“We run our F2 and F4 cars from here so we’re probably at our limit space-wise in this building. You need the space for the truck, parts, storage for all the freight boxes. It’s nice and tidy and clean to make it easy for the boys to work.
“Some of the turnarounds between races are two days, it gets very tight so the easier we can make it with the building the better and we think we’ve cracked it here now.”
The Invicta workshop is spotless even with work ongoing to Gabriel Bortoleto’s #10 car in one of the bays. The atmosphere is relaxed but everyone is busy with a task of some sort, from rebuilding a gearbox to preparing analysis and feedback in efforts to eke out even more performance from every avenue.
Preparation work commences as soon as the team unpacks the cars following a race weekend, and every single detail cannot be overlooked.
“At the racetrack, it’s very flat out, especially due to the timetable so it’s a lot more relaxing at the workshop as opposed to the circuit, but there’s a lot more work to do in the workshop than at the circuit,” Number 1 mechanic on Kush Maini’s car, Nathan Winter, explains.
“When the kit gets back here, you get unloaded out of the truck, everything’s cleaned, then full teardown, diff out, gearbox is completely re-stripped, engine comes off, check the chassis, check all the fuel pumps, so every time the car comes to the workshop, it has been rebuilt as a brand new car, new wheel bearings, callipers, seals, everything. So as soon as it’s out of the truck, it goes into the bay and stays there until a day before it has to leave.”
It all needs to be done in short order, and with the upcoming round at Monza being followed by three flyaway to finish the 2024 campaign, it means the cars will not be back in the workshop until after post-season testing is completed following the finale in Abu Dhabi in November.
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“There’s always stuff to do,” Andy continues. “The boys are always coming up with different ideas to make their lives easier and better, different stands, different jacks, it’s a constant thing, it stays busy.
“Everything gets put in the freight boxes here and will get shipped down to Malpensa. After the race in Monza on Sunday, the cars will then be shipped to Baku pretty much straight after and then we won’t see them in this building again until Christmas, because they’ll go from Baku to Qatar, then Abu Dhabi.”
The turnaround of each car is second nature to everyone involved, and while everyone has a specific role to focus on, no one has a singular aspect to get on with. Troy Cassidy, Number 2 mechanic on Bortoleto’s car, works with Number 1 mechanic Rory Brodie, and the pair split the car front and rear to work as efficiently as possible.
“It’s weird to try and nail down one thing that you do,” Cassidy says. “I think the difference between us and F1 is we’re a lot more involved with the whole remit of the car rather than just one particular department. We’re a lot more involved as the whole.
“Rory and I work together with one based towards the front, one based towards the rear. Rory takes care of the main role of decision making and things like that with the car. I’m here to sort of assist him and make his life as easy as possible.
“It just runs a lot more efficient that way rather than two people trying to pull in two different directions. We’ve worked together so long that it’s sort of like second nature.”
While the cars in Formula 2 are equal in specification both in terms of aerodynamics and engine, other ways of finding performance cannot be left unexplored.
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This is where the fine margins make more of a difference, and so with pitstops and strategy such a pivotal aspect of a race, it’s another avenue that is worked on away from the track.
“At the moment, we are in the middle of designing a system for the pit stop practice so it can do automatic timing,” Data Systems Engineer Alex Thew says. “There will be a screen with a little Raspberry Pi running a script on it, but it’ll be connected to some buttons either side of it so they can hit a button to start it, do the change and hit another button to stop it.
“That’ll be a trackable exercise and competition leaderboard for us. I also do all the video editing, analysis and all the timing to do with that. Race by race, we get updates on the pit stop practice times and the averages over the season.
“I’ll also be analysing everything from starts to test items, anything like that, pit stop analysis, posting and reporting, doing a lot of CAD work, designing various things, bits of equipment for our pit stops, items like trolleys, or whatever it might be.
“We’ve also worked with a physiotherapist that came in and gave input on how to train better while taking care of ourselves. Then that inherently leads to more speed, because they feel fresher for every stop, rather than being knackered by the end of a weekend because of bad technique.”
Time isn’t the only finite resource to contend with, as budgetary decisions are also accounted for and is another performance differentiator between the F2 outfits as they decide where and how to invest in the race team.
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For example, Race Engineer Geoff Spear explains the thinking behind not operating an in-house simulator at their workshop.
“Unlike most of the other teams, we don’t have a simulator at the workshop. Part of the reason for that is that we are one of the smallest teams so at this stage, it hasn’t warranted the expense. We get a better product by leasing time off commercially available simulators.
“Other teams like PREMA Racing for example, who compete in five or six different championships, that makes a lot more sense for them to invest in a decent sim because they will be running it pretty much every day. It’s something we’re going to look at for the future, but at this point we get a better product going elsewhere.”
That’s not to say the team goes into a race weekend flying blindly, as extensive work goes into the pre-race simulation and analysis across a wide spectrum of areas, as Spear explains.
“Most of my time is taken up with data analysis that’s prepared by the performance, systems and simulation engineers, then putting all that together and deciding which direction we’re going to go with the car and what we’re going to say to the driver in terms of how he needs to drive whether it’s for a performance lap or how he needs to work in a race to look after his tyres and manage the race.
“We try and do things as a team. Not so much structured but more organically so both sides of the garage, drivers and engineers are learning from both cars. We see it as a strength having two cars on track together that you can try different things, and it give us an opportunity to learn new stuff faster than if you were to try the same thing on both cars at the same time.”
Once the cars and equipment have been packed up and sent to the racetrack, pre-race preparation doesn’t suddenly become a non-factor.
While there is less a team can do on the ground at a circuit as opposed to the workshop, ensuring the team is able to operate and is prepared for every eventuality becomes the focus.
“On a race weekend, we’ll go in and set-up on Tuesday,”
Mechanic Jake Puttock says. “We usually do 12 to 14 stops ahead of one session, so it’d be double that throughout the Friday. Then when it comes to Saturday morning, we’ll then go into our race procedure stops, we’ll practice double stacks, wing changes, stalls, stuff like that just so we get prepared for the races.”
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Team Manager Paul Devlin says the work that goes into racing and being competitive in Formula 2 is higher than ever before, as is the workload that the teams undertake to get to that level.
“It’s changed a lot now, but slowly. It’s crept up – the detail of everything is massive now. My first season was 2006 and it was busy on the cars then, but now, during a setup change, we will be changing the diff, geometry and other non-standard changes.
“There’s a lot more detail in the tyres now. They’ll be scraped, weighed, pressure checked, and temperatures taken every time we can. 15 years ago, that wasn’t the case, but it’s still only two people doing it.
“Engineers – the analysis is so much deeper than it ever was with the backup of simulation. Although simulation is there as a backup, and should make it easier, you now have more detail. We’re seeing it on the grid, the gaps in Qualifying are hundredths.
“Previously there were top teams, middle and bottom teams but now, I think all the teams are running at high standard. More things have got to be right for you to win. The setup needs to be right. You need the ultimate performance, but you need to look after the tyres as well. Then the strategy is so important, making the right decisions on that.”
Devlin, along with Roche and fellow director Declan Lohan, have been guiding the team since day one and have overseen the changes to motorsport at this level throughout.
For Lohan, it is a huge point of pride that the team is consistently fighting for top honours and highlights just how hard it is to achieve that level of success.
“I started Virtuosi Racing with Andy and Paul 13 years ago and never believed how big and how good and what a fantastic job they would go on to do with the team to get us where we are today.
“Originally, I’m in the building trade and there’s no way I could ask a builder to work past four o’clock, but the mechanics and lads would work through the night if they had to, to get the car ready. They’re a special breed of people.
“The highs and the lows of it are the best and worst part of the job. One minute you could be in Qualifying and thinking ‘oh my god, that was absolutely terrible.’ And the next minute you’re on the podium and you think ‘this is fantastic.’
“It’s a lovely paddock. I love all the people I know and meeting everybody up and down the grid, it’s different. I have seen the highs and the lows. You can be so happy one weekend and the next one could be so bad, and you’re looking at the parents or the driver or the sponsor of the driver, where things didn’t go their way that weekend – it’s hard. It’s very, very tough. But it’s a family. I’ve made friends there that I’ll know for life, it’s fantastic.”