14 replies to this topic

[Disgrace]

For those who don't follow MotoGP, the recent Argentine race had the usual three-day schedule compacted into two days due to freight delays, an article about which can be read here. In short:

 

The plane, EX-47001, is the second of Aerostan’s fleet of two to break down at the Kenyan airport while ferrying MotoGP equipment, with it having been sent to relieve the first one after it initially suffered a problem. The two planes belonging to the Kyrgyzstani airline are both over 35 years old – but amid a global cargo plane shortage caused both by the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, MotoGP organiser Dorna has been left in an unenviable situation and has managed to respond well to the external obstacles being thrown its way so far.

 

And now:

 

A ship containing the freight of three [F1] teams, which had originally been expected to take 42 days, was delayed by more than one week that left it on a tight timetable to make it to Australia. But amid the risk of further delays, F1’s official freight partner DHL intervened last weekend and took the decision to pull the freight from the ship at Singapore and fly it down to Melbourne instead.

 

Perhaps expanded calendars with record numbers of races amidst broken global supply chains is going to end badly for some races this year. Could races be cancelled?

[d246]

There'll be more of this as the season progresses. Cargo, logistics and supply chains are still heavily affected by the pandemic and other geopolitical issues.

[Disgrace]

There'll be more of this as the season progresses. Cargo, logistics and supply chains are still heavily affected by the pandemic and other geopolitical issues.

 

I think so too, hence this thread!

 

I forgot to add to the OP, logistical issues have already disrupted Haas' preparations for the season, with them running extended hours to make up for lost track time. The incidents are piling up quickly.

[Risil]

Which calendar jumps are particularly risky? The week between Baku and Montreal, and then Sao Paulo to Abu Dhabi later in the season look tight.

 

But then F1 doesn't literally haul everything it needs from place to place sequentially. Shipping has to be sent on its way several races in advance, the more time-sensitive stuff has got to be flown from race to race. Of course if it's not been designed with lots of redundancy, like a plane should be, the more complex the system the more things that could cause a catastrophic failure.

 

Also, er, why is MotoGP using a Kyrgyzstani airline and its 35-year-old Boeing 747s to haul the circus around? Everyone else booked up?

[RedRabbit]

It really feels like motorsports bosses / commercial owners are quite oblivious of the lockdown impacts, additional protocols being observed and the logistics strain of such long international seasons.

There was a chance for common sense to intervene back in 2020, and lessons to be observed, but greed and money always take control. Reducing the seasons back to 16 or 17 races and potentially alternating circuits would have made a lot of sense since then and for the next few years at least.

[JimmyClark]

OK this might be a bit of a boring topic, but it could be worth talking about. 

 

I noticed this story today of how DHL had to push quite hard to get the Melbourne freight all in... 

 

https://www.grandpri...t-to-melbourne/

 

Formula 1’s official freight partner DHL had to intervene to ensure that the equipment, which was in the midst of a 42-day trip down under by sea freight, made it to Australia in time for the third round of the 2022 F1 World Championship at Albert Park this weekend.

The report revealed that a ship containing the freight was delayed by nearly two weeks; add to that the fact that some of the teams wanted to make changes to their garage ‘kit’ since the end of last season (for instance, Aston Martin Racing is running a different shade of green that it did last year) and then, February and Ukraine happened.

DHL’s Vice President of Motorsport Logistics, Paul Fowler, had to fly from the company’s Luton, UK base to Singapore to ‘rescue’ the supplies for three F1 teams, which had been delayed in transit and which were in danger of arriving in Melbourne too late.

And if you follow Joe Saward's blog, its something he's talked about quite often...

https://joesaward.wo...nt-from-motogp/

Last year’s F1 had near-misses in Brazil and Qatar, and there was also a very close call in Mexico that went unreported. Thus, these sort of problems were coming because of disruption caused by COVID-19 restrictions. Now they have the added problem of the war in Ukraine. And that makes it difficult because sports don’t seem to understand that there are limits of what can be achieved and are trying to cram too much into their schedules. Even the most efficient freight operations are struggling to keep up.

Things have got far worse since the war because this has reduced the world’s air freight capacity with the Volga-Dniepr Group’s AirBridgeCargo (ABC) operation, which has a fleet of 17 Jumbos all being withdrawn from international operation. Other airlines have been forced to reroute their flights to avoid flying over Russian air space and so fuel costs have gone up and delays have increased. This means that keeping to tight schedules is not easy and so deadlines have started slipping and no-one will give guarantees. F1 cannot cope with flights that might be a day or two late. There are no margins of error and as F1 is only an intermittent customer with the freight companies, and not using the same routes week after week, they do not get priority. The biggest problem is what happens if a freighter suffers technical problems, because these days there is no capacity left to find replacement aircraft. It is the same with climate problems. It also does not help if customs officials slow down the process, which often happens in countries that have complicated bureaucracy.

So it seems there is quite a high risk of freight related delays in F1 this year, particularly in the latter part of the season where we have many tightly-packed flyaways (it's worth reading the whole article linked above)

There is also this aspect, from the first article:

“Rates from Europe to Asia to Europe that were pitching at about [US] $900 a container is now about $20,000.”

So some of the questions are...

- What happens if a team or multiple teams are missing crucial parts for an event and cannot run at all? Would it be fair for the event to go ahead? (given the finances involved it probably would, but how to compensate the teams?)

- If teams have to miss Friday practice due to freight issues beyond their control, would they be allowed extra running on Saturday? (like Haas in testing). 

- How will the increased freight costs impact F1?

- Are there any other consequences? 

[ANF]

Which calendar jumps are particularly risky? The week between Baku and Montreal, and then Sao Paulo to Abu Dhabi later in the season look tight.

Beri posted this excellent F1 calendar map the other day. It doesn't have any dates though.

[d246]

The map, coupled with all the pinch points noted in Jo Saward's article, makes a delay almost inevitable this year. It also highlights how impressive and complicated the organisation of the logistics is in the first place.

[boomn]

The map, coupled with all the pinch points noted in Jo Saward's article, makes a delay almost inevitable this year. It also highlights how impressive and complicated the organisation of the logistics is in the first place.

That map shows the event schedule but the shipping schedule is far more complicated while at the same time less back-and-forth for the bulk of the freight!  The cars and some important parts and equipment do travel directly from race to race.  The teams have 5 sets of their other equipment, and these ship to events that are sometimes a month or two out on the schedule.  A lot of the Australia freight left Europe before the first test in Barcelona.  Freight for Miami is already enroute.  The Saudi freight could be shipping to Imola, or could be going ahead to Monaco or even Baku.  I saw a map of this one time and would love to find something current!

 

The article I read on Motorsport mentioned that teams are feeling pushed towards a sixth set of equipment to help alleviate the tight margins even when shipping for events a month or two ahead

Edited by boomn, 06 April 2022 - 15:54.

[Risil]

It's complicated! Especially as we've heard of issues both with shipping delays and air freight dropping out at short notice. Air freight appears to be the one that has the most potential for catastrophic failure (i.e. a race not going ahead), perhaps because the timescales are more compressed so there's less time to react to problems when they arise.

[Beri]

Thank you for bringing that map up ANF, I was about to dig it up myself when I saw this thread title.
To me it shows that there is a lot of improvement to be made to make the schedule way more logical and less prone to shipping issues. Have an American part of the calendar including north and south America, get a European one, a Middle Eastern one and an Asian one including Australia. It makes way more sense. This opposed to the exotic trips that F1 takes regularly. Like the trip to Miami after Imola and subsequently to Miami staying on the European continent. It's ridiculous. A calendar schedule like that put such a strain to the cargo schedule, which so easily could be avoided.
DHL is F1s logistic partner. But even their hands are tied to the amount of cargo planes that are available. And considering F1 uses up six 747's to ship it's cargo in a nine month period of the season and clock over 130k miles, it just makes it clear what that strain is. Having dedicated cargo planes could be a possibility. There are companies that still have cargo airplanes available to lease, but since DHL is the official partner, the FOM can't come knocking on doors of the likes of GECAS. Which is the biggest aircraft leasing company of the world.

[boomn]

Thank you for bringing that map up ANF, I was about to dig it up myself when I saw this thread title.
To me it shows that there is a lot of improvement to be made to make the schedule way more logical and less prone to shipping issues. Have an American part of the calendar including north and south America, get a European one, a Middle Eastern one and an Asian one including Australia. It makes way more sense. This opposed to the exotic trips that F1 takes regularly. Like the trip to Miami after Imola and subsequently to Miami staying on the European continent. It's ridiculous. A calendar schedule like that put such a strain to the cargo schedule, which so easily could be avoided.
DHL is F1s logistic partner. But even their hands are tied to the amount of cargo planes that are available. And considering F1 uses up six 747's to ship it's cargo in a nine month period of the season and clock over 130k miles, it just makes it clear what that strain is. Having dedicated cargo planes could be a possibility. There are companies that still have cargo airplanes available to lease, but since DHL is the official partner, the FOM can't come knocking on doors of the likes of GECAS. Which is the biggest aircraft leasing company of the world.

Airplanes are important but are not carrying the bulk of F1 freight.  A lot of the team, FIA and F1 media equipment for Australia has been on ships since February.  One of the ships got delayed.  A lot of the equipment for Miami is already en route via ship, and after Miami is probably heading to Montreal by ship or truck.  For the bulk of the cargo, the staggered locations actually enable F1 to use slower, cheaper, greener transportation.  The big downsides of this are the cost of having 5 or even 6 sets of all of this equipment, and the logistics needed to coordinate multiple sets of everything traveling at the same time between different locations.  This is why F1 partners with DHL instead of using a Kyrgyzstani airline like MotoGP!  That said, sea freight could be more impacted than air freight at times, like the Suez issue last year, and you can't intercept cargo from a ship still stuck out at sea!

 

This still leaves the cars and other things too expensive to have multiples, which are flown directly.  We do have two week gaps in the calendar from last week through to Barcelona in late May to give room for possible delays.  I agree that Jeddah to Melbourne to Imola to Miami to Barcelona could be improved.  Switching Miami before Imola makes an obviously straighter path.  The rest of the spring and summer doesn't look too bad: from May to September the races stay in Europe except for one flight to Montreal

[jonpollak]

I’m having the same freight movement difficulties in my current job as Production Manager. I had to book back up transport for all the gear going to Ireland from Memphis as the freight agent cannot guarantee delivery on the date specified. So I have a bloke with a 737 EX waiting for a phone call from the freight forwarding guy saying Load up and GO or… stand down.

This is all costing the company loadsa mahoney.

I’d like to go back to lighting design ASAP.
Jp

[Sash1]

 

Also, er, why is MotoGP using a Kyrgyzstani airline and its 35-year-old Boeing 747s to haul the circus around? Everyone else booked up?

 

They use several airlines. Yesterday at 18.00 local time the last cargo plane From Atlas Air took off from Tucuman for a direct flight to Austin where the first practice will start friday. That is actually again way too late for a normal build up. Planes were delayed because the load master at Tucuman had to be replaced because he tested covid positive and a plane had a technical problem. I believe Atlas Air did all 5 flights from Tucuman to Austin.

 

The Kyrgyzi's were available for that (Indonesia/Africa/Sout America) area. 

 

One of the problems is that due to sanctions Russian cargo planes cannot be used anymore. And those Russian lease planes cannot be leased by other companies as they will be in Russia for a long time. The return sanctions by the Russians cause longer cargo routes and thus the planes can carry less cargo in the old time frames.

 

MotoGP nor F1 can afford to buy their own planes and they are too small players in the markets to make huge demands. And they cannot force anything when the operator has technical problems. 

 

Will be a fun season.

[d246]

Sounds like there's a gap in the market for an organisation with a large amount of capital.