10 replies to this topic

[bartez1000]

Motorhomes, or more professionaly "paddock corporate hospitality units" are now a well-known trademark of european races. But I still have some questions about these structures in the past.

1) When teams started building & transporting custom-made motohomes to races?

2) Do anybody have photos of these in past?

3) Where teams are living in overseas races anyway? In certain circuits (Like Yeongam or Shanghai) there are some "houses" build in paddock, directly behind pits. On the other hand, I cant find them in Montreal or Albert park. Is having these structures mandatory for circuits to obtain FIA Grade 1 or something like that? What was with it in the past?

4) Is motorhome - building present only in F1, or are these seen in other racing series' paddocks?

Thanks for any answers.

[Stephen W]

If by 'motorhome' you mean a vehicle in which the competitor sleeps then I guess there have been motorhomes for decades. Also do you include the hard working mechanics?

[bartez1000]

In fact I was thinking about these big building assemblied from parts in paddock, where are some meeting places and offices, like Red Bull's "Energy Station" or Force India's "Taj Mahal" http://zerofilter.ty...kes-rving-.html. Don't think that anybody sleeps there.

[scheivlak]

Looked around a bit and found this 1991 article about F1's finances http://www.grandprix...ft/ft00084.html telling us "A team needs to entertain the corporate hotshots who pay the bills so motorhomes become larger and more luxurious. A motor home such as Benetton's costs US$250,000, but that's not really a lot of money when one hears that of Marlboro reputedly spent half a million on its hospitality unit." 

We may safely say that the current motorhomes cost a bit more  . The next big leap came -I guess- in the mid 90s and since then the motorhomes have exploded every few years until the current economic climate has brought that to a halt.

Edited by scheivlak, 01 October 2013 - 21:27.

[Frank S]

You can learn a great deal from the book I Just Made the Tea which appeared recently and has been mentioned in these Forums.

Edited by Frank S, 02 October 2013 - 03:33.

[Stephen W]

Corporate hostility in the early 1990s was usually in a temporary structure that the company rented. Some bigger companies bought their own. These tended to be marquees rather than 'solid' structures.

[seldo]

I was talking to one of the drivers of one of the Red Bull rigs at the Monaco GP last year as he was polishing it, and he said that they had 34 of these trucks! Then he corrected himself and said it could be more by now, because each time one of the teams up-graded their corporate facilities, they had to follow or be shown-up. He also said they wash and polish the trucks by hand, after every trip, sometimes twice a week....

[D-Type]

Was it Hesketh who introduced 'hospitality' to the paddock or had one or two of the major sponsors already done so by then?

Edited by D-Type, 02 October 2013 - 19:19.

[Frank S]

The information that makes me shake my head and smile (probably from this forum) was that the teams employ one or more workers whose job is to jack up the wheeled vehicles and orient the tire lettering properly. Hah!

[scheivlak]

Was it Hesketh who introduced 'hospitality' to the paddock or had one or two of the major sponsors already done so by then?

I vaguely remember that he made quite an impression by showing the biggest yacht of all in the Monaco harbour - was that the moment that specific competition started?

[D-Type]

The information that makes me shake my head and smile (probably from this forum) was that the teams employ one or more workers whose job is to jack up the wheeled vehicles and orient the tire lettering properly. Hah!

  Well, they've gotta pander to Ernie Becclestone's sense of order.