28 replies to this topic

[kraduk]

http://www.autosport...t.php/id/122549

 

F1 is so insular sometime it amuses me. I can see why the increased race count can have an effect on peoples life/performance/health etc, however its not like these issues haven't been encountered in the world outside F1 and dealt with successfully. EG the FIA could decree that no person apart from a select few people could attend more than 10 GP's say, and also limit their hours at each GP weekend. Or maybe give each team member a non transferable allocation of time that they could spend at track side for the season. Many different possibilities here, and they could all be introduced under safety regulations so bypass all the BS with the team principles. 

[swintex]

I'm sure there's a regulatory limit somewhere on the numbers of personnel per team allowed to attend races, to save money.

 

So now there may need to be a requirement, imposed by the same regulatory authority, for the teams to employ more staff in a bid to prevent possible fatigue brought on by the number of races on the calendar.

 

!

 

Maybe I should double-post this in http://forums.autosp...-in-motorsport/

 

Richard

[Fastcake]

The problem is in the order of the calendar. The first four races are Australia, Bahrain, China, Russia, at fortnightly gaps. Who on earth thinks that is a good idea? Well we know who, Bernie, but he doesn't travel to all the races anymore, so probably doesn't know or care about how hard the constant travel and time away from home is. If you had a better managed calendar, it would be easier on everyone, and cut down on travel costs.

You should also keep a hard limit on races at 20, which is a nice even number, but the FIA already bowed to Bernie on that one.

[loki]

There are plenty of other professions where there is just as big a demand on time and travel than F1.  Cup teams have a more demanding schedule, touring concert crews, film crews and technology workers have more demanding schedules.  It's part of what they signed up for and if they aren't happy they should look toward other career options.

 

There is no need to regulate it.  If a team decides to split the crew as in the article, that's great but it's a tough gig and they know that when they sign up.

[stewie]

There are plenty of other professions where there is just as big a demand on time and travel than F1. Cup teams have a more demanding schedule, touring concert crews, film crews and technology workers have more demanding schedules. It's part of what they signed up for and if they aren't happy they should look toward other career options.

There is no need to regulate it. If a team decides to split the crew as in the article, that's great but it's a tough gig and they know that when they sign up.

Have you ever worked in an industry of what you speak of?

I have for 15yrs and I can tell you for a fact that the 'it's what you signed up for' stuff is rubbish. It's a job like any other, and you shouldn't have to expect it to take over and (in some cases) ruin your life.

I feel for the F1 team guys, it's incredibly hard to keep relationships, friendships etc going when you're never there.

[chunder27]

I have TRIED to work in numerous industries like this. Most of the jobs are jobs for the boys rather than the best qualified. 

And it stinks, you are in a worse situation than any other worker in a sort of "wanted" job. Nurses get great benefits and living discounts, teachers got stacks of time off, journos and F1 people get to work for nothing for days and days of overtime with the only perk being a bit of travel.

 

It's a nonsense industry, taking advantage of peoples enthusiasm, and it stretches right down from f1 to every single motorsport company pretty much in the UK.

 

They ALL take  advantage of the enthusiasm of youth and of you have any experience of other industries you will son relaise that it is the driving force behind just about everyone one of them, they use people.

[loki]

Have you ever worked in an industry of what you speak of?

I have for 15yrs and I can tell you for a fact that the 'it's what you signed up for' stuff is rubbish. It's a job like any other, and you shouldn't have to expect it to take over and (in some cases) ruin your life.

I feel for the F1 team guys, it's incredibly hard to keep relationships, friendships etc going when you're never there.

 

I'm in my 36th year of working in high end, high performance show business.  (my wife and I also have a small manufacturing business)  For the better part of three decades I logged millions of miles, all over the world, weeks and months at a time.   I retired from touring about 10 years ago.  I'm now a key member on one of the largest, most complex entertainment productions on the planet but still do some corporate events, broadcast and a feature film here and there.  It's not a job, it's a lifestyle and if one can't come to terms with that they need to find something else.  Which is why I decided not to tour any more.  They make the choice to get into the business.  They can also make the choice to get out if they so choose.  If it's ruining your life that's on you, not the job.

 

I have TRIED to work in numerous industries like this. Most of the jobs are jobs for the boys rather than the best qualified. 

And it stinks, you are in a worse situation than any other worker in a sort of "wanted" job. Nurses get great benefits and living discounts, teachers got stacks of time off, journos and F1 people get to work for nothing for days and days of overtime with the only perk being a bit of travel.

 

It's a nonsense industry, taking advantage of peoples enthusiasm, and it stretches right down from f1 to every single motorsport company pretty much in the UK.

 

They ALL take  advantage of the enthusiasm of youth and of you have any experience of other industries you will son relaise that it is the driving force behind just about everyone one of them, they use people.

At the big time end of the spectrum it's most certainly about who is the best.  To say most of the jobs don't go to those qualified is well off the mark.  It's that sort of attitude that can lead to one not getting the job.  Contacts and networking play into it but if you can't perform, you're gone.  I tell the kids it's not who you know, but who knows you.   At the entry level of the business and in the low end some do take advantage of of some of those trying to get in.  When you hit the big leagues, you have to perform or go home.  There are always more people than gigs.  Unfortunately many of those are not that good and/or do not have the contacts to develop their careers.

Edited by loki, 21 January 2016 - 14:29.

[Radoye]

Cup teams have a more demanding schedule...

 

I'm not so sure about this. They do have significantly more races in NASCAR compared to F1, but most of these are very close to each other, rarely venturing out of the southeast corner of the US, so the time spent in transit between the races is significantly less, and they're never that far away from home either. From what i could gather through media, the issue here is not so much the 21+ weekends spent at the race track as much the time spent traveling from one side of the globe to other and switching multiple timezones. The F1 people are in a season-long perpetual state of jetlag, and they don't see their families between the races.

 

[ardbeg]

Fatigue is everywhere, in all professions. We need to produce. I work all day I work all night I go to work. So it goes.

[loki]

I'm not so sure about this. They do have significantly more races in NASCAR compared to F1, but most of these are very close to each other, rarely venturing out of the southeast corner of the US, so the time spent in transit between the races is significantly less, and they're never that far away from home either. From what i could gather through media, the issue here is not so much the 21+ weekends spent at the race track as much the time spent traveling from one side of the globe to other and switching multiple timezones. The F1 people are in a season-long perpetual state of jetlag, and they don't see their families between the races.

 

They spend more time away from home than F1 teams.  They fly far miles than an F1 team though the legs aren't as along.  They are gone almost every week in the season, usually from Weds through Sun night or Monday morning.

[stewie]

I'm in my 36th year of working in high end, high performance show business.

Well this is a touch embarrassing given I work in the theatre industry but I still stand by everything I said. It is a job, there isn't such a thing as a lifestyle in my opinion. Not when it comes to a profession!

To get it back on topic, I would imagine F1 suffers from the same problem of being getting burnt out, leaving and taking their skills with them. New, younger lesser skilled people come in, learn their skills, get burnt out, leave and the whole circle continues.

I've always thought this is a mad idea - I favour people being given a good work / life balance, as such they want to spend more time working in any given industry, keeping the skill base high, reducing the amount of financial investment needing to train new people, happier and more motivated staff leading to better productivity.

[Marklar]

They spend more time away from home than F1 teams. They fly far miles than an F1 team though the legs aren't as along. They are gone almost every week in the season, usually from Weds through Sun night or Monday morning.

Yeah and F1 teams are attending on mondays/tuesdays on the circuit and are on mondays/tuesdays back at home again...

Edited by Marklar, 21 January 2016 - 15:24.

[maximilian]

There are plenty of other professions where there is just as big a demand on time and travel than F1.  Cup teams have a more demanding schedule, touring concert crews, film crews and technology workers have more demanding schedules.  It's part of what they signed up for and if they aren't happy they should look toward other career options.

 

There is no need to regulate it.  If a team decides to split the crew as in the article, that's great but it's a tough gig and they know that when they sign up.

 

This.  I get a bit tired of all the whining about the teams being too exhausted.  You want to work in F1?  Get with the program, and stop complaining.  You have a glamorous dream job and are getting paid to see the world in a most exciting way.   Can't handle that?  NEXT. 

[pdac]

It's not the number of race meetings on the calendar but, rather, the way the teams operate that's the problem. They bring huge numbers of staff. They're only racing 2 cars. If the number of races poses a big demand on people, don't bring everyone to every race. Cut the number of people down by half and have each individual only attend 50% of the meetings on a rota system.

 

Don't blame the organisers for scheduling in more races, get the teams to manage their resources properly.

 

Of course, the FIA could do a lot more. For example, they have a curfew system at the moment. Maybe there should be NO exceptions and maybe they should not just fine teams but actually exclude them if they break curfews. Perhaps this is the sort of approach that is needed to ensure that teams look after their staff properly.

[ardbeg]

Well this is a touch embarrassing given I work in the theatre industry but I still stand by everything I said. It is a job, there isn't such a thing as a lifestyle in my opinion. Not when it comes to a profession!
 

I know very few that has managed to reach the top 1% of their profession without integrating their work into their lifestyle. I'm not saying it's good, most of the people dedicating their life to their profession are getting very little in return. Money, yes, maybe, but the cost of earning that money is high. Anyway, this situation is not unique to F1, it is the situation everywhere. We can all choose, but only a few have actual options. 

[turssi]

I'm sure the rich teams would rotate staff (maybe they do?) if it would bring performance benefits.

I mean it doesn't have to be the same guys that make up the limited number race staff at each and every race.

It might even be that we're discussing this not because it's a real issue, but because the journalists have found that there is a demand for stories like this.

[Tsarwash]

Well this is a touch embarrassing given I work in the theatre industry but I still stand by everything I said. It is a job, there isn't such a thing as a lifestyle in my opinion. Not when it comes to a profession!

I run a pub. It's not unusual for me to be there seven nights a week. The pay's rubbish of course. But I don't have to wake until midday or One in the afternoon. Sounds like a lifestyle to me.

[jonpollak]

Cry me a frickin' river...
Jp

[Tsarwash]

My life is great, I'm not asking anybody to cry for me. Just saying that I made a professional lifestyle choice. 

[SlipLtd]

Bring on the camouflage livery!

[sopa]

Considering job naturally takes quite a lot of time out of any person's life, it is only natural it heavily interferes with lifestyle in general.

 

But sure enough, there are plenty of jobs (or should I say commitments/responsibilites), which not only heavily influence lifestyles, but demand almost 24/7 attention on it!

 

So yea, life in the world is stressful.

 

Fatigue problem is very practical for F1 teams though. Because if team personnel is burnt out, the quality of operations decreases. So it demands quite clever planning and workshifts to get the best out of everyone. However, it is not easy for teams to be flexible. Resources are always limited, as the saying goes, which includes human resources!

[KWSN - DSM]

Anyone in a job that is 'just a job' should look for another job.

 

What I do is not my passion, but I bring passion to my job, my coworkers bring passion to the job, we all pull and work in a direction for ourselves, our departments and the company. At the end of the day there is one single guy owning everything, he is the one who at the end get paid for all what we do but while we do it we become 'The Company' we take some sort of pride in it when doing good, we pull together when hitting hard times.

 

It is always a choice to work for a company, I understand the traveling for F1 teams are crazy hard but they are in this for passion and want, and it should not be a concern of the FIA or any regulatory body how a team set themselves up employee wise on a global scale, except for how may they want in the pits at any given tine.

 

[oetzi]

Most of my work is in or with start ups. The ones that treat it as a job tend to stop. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that people like Frank Williams, Ron Dennis or Bernie have seen that. So it's no surprise that's the culture. They care about what they do and they want to win. So they try. Why stop people doing that?

[jonpollak]

Can we go back to talking about technical stage production?

It's my expert topic ya know...

 

Jp

 

PS..    @ the loki and stewie coversation.

[Marklar]

I didnt saw any mechanic complaining. I think its more that the teams are afraid that the staff will (naturally) lose at some point a bit the focus and then do more mistakes.

[kraduk]

A lot of interesting responses here, some of them harsher than others 

 

One thing a do find odd though is there has been lots of effort put into driver and track side safety over the years for good reason. I find it strange then that if so many people are on the edge of permanent exhaustion, that the same safety conscious organisations take a blind eye to all this going on, as the end results can be just as undesirable, but not as obvious and direct. Saying leave it to the teams to sort out is kind of irresponsible as well, as we all know what car safety was like when we let the engineers take care of it... 

 

All this overtime at the track and factories doesn't really do anything to improve the sport after all so as long as everyone adheres to any rules brought in it shouldn't make any difference. 

[stewie]

Can we go back to talking about technical stage production?
It's my expert topic ya know...

Jp

PS.. @ the loki and stewie coversation.

I was wondering how long it'd be before you noticed that ;-) so embarrassing! Lol

[JHSingo]

Cup teams have a more demanding schedule

 

The difference is, F1 travels outside of one (admittedly large) country. They have to adjust to far more time zone changes than NASCAR teams, the traveling time (getting to Australia and back, for just one example) is considerably longer than what NASCAR teams have to put up with. Plus, consider the other aspect. It's alright for the drivers who can rock up on Wednesday or Thursday on private jets, but a lot of people have to turn up days before that to set up the garages, then break it down and pack everything away at the end.  I don't think the comparison with NASCAR is fair or valid at all. Sure, there are more races and more weekends where they are racing, but it's just not comparable to the international travel that F1 personnel go through.

I think the F1 calendar is too long now. Last season felt very long. As a fan, I feel like it dragged on horribly, so I can't even begin to imagine what it must have felt like for those who call it a job. Sure, it's what they signed up for, but I can't help but feel a bit of sympathy for those people when the season gets longer almost every year, and there's more races crammed in a short space of time. I think there's this assumption that anyone working in F1 is "living the dream" (admittedly, I thought that when I was younger) and that those who complain about the traveling should shut up and put up or get another job...but I think it would be sensible to have a cap on the number of races there is in a season.

Honestly, I'd be happy with as few as 15 or 16 races. It makes the travel less hectic, and means there's more free weekends for different types of motorsport. That way it would be very easy to avoid calendar clashes like Le Mans and a Grand Prix being held on the same weekend.

Edited by JHSingo, 23 January 2016 - 23:28.

[KWSN - DSM]

I would like a cap on number of races, but not reasoned by team members fatigue.

 

The season have become too long, making it less entertaining since the a race now mean less in the overall championship reckoning. This day and age with reliability being close to 100 there is already less tenseness around who will win, extending and extending just ensure that the front runners can have a bad weekend and will mean little or nothing to their campaign.

 

12 Races between March 1st and October 30th problem solved.