En route Delhi

Watching a Formula1 race live from the stands is an incredible experience – that is what they said. Couple of weeks back I could only imagine it– yes, it does highlight the fact that despite calling myself an avid enthusiast I had never attended a F1 race weekend. But things were about to change. It would have been a sacrilege to miss saying adieu to the wonderful V8s, even at the cost of a fight in office for leave and seats that were at best equitable. But you got to do what you got to do! Especially when there is a chance that F1 might not return to India and taking with it all the chances of making it to the other side of the start-finish straight. But once again, fate had something else in store for the weekend.

Standing in the Scuderia Ferrari pit and paddock on Friday, I had to pinch myself to believe that this was happening. Just a few hours ago I was gunning the Mercedes-Benz E-Class from Chittorgarh to Ajmer in Rajasthan, my destination –the 2013 Formula One GP at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida. Then the phone started to ring. There goes my weekend! I had taken the week off and had left from Mumbai for the Formula-one weekend. Expecting my boss to be calling me back to work, I was dreading picking the call. Luckily, it was a call from the Shell public relations team to invite me to their partner Scuderia Ferrari’s pit and paddock during the Friday practice sessions. Now, that was something I did not mind hearing and being barely able to suppress my joy, I accepted the invite.

Formula-One is one of the most watched sports around the globe and the race day is a spectacle with shining perfect cars racing around the track at breathtaking speeds beating each other by a margin of microseconds. Everything counts at this level - the efficiency of the pit-crew, the expertise of the engineers and technicians, the endurance of the driver, the effectiveness of the strategy, the temperature of fuel and even the viscosity of the oils.

Tour of the pit

It is not every day that you get to be so close to the legends of motorsport, if not them, at least the hallowed car pits would suffice for me. Unwilling to miss even a single moment of this opportunity I reached the BIC grandstand gates well in time for my appointment. At the entry, dressed in racing-red - the Shell-Ferrari livery, stood Mr. Richard waiting to take me on my experience of a lifetime.

Entering the Ferrari pit, I could not wipe that grin off my face. I felt just like a child when he sees his favourite toy. Our first stop was at the Shell truck lab. The lab looked a bit cramped with equipment stashed everywhere but in a systematic way. After the introductions, Mr. Guy Lovett - Shell’s technology manager for Ferrari, began explaining to us the fuel and oil regulations and practices in Formula One.

Shell has been associated with Ferrari since Enzo Ferrari’s Alfa-Romeo days. The backbone of the Ferrari team, the Shell engineers and scientists use this vast database of experience and information to tweak the fuel and oil composition within the rules and regulations so as to suit the engine running conditions and performance. I was surprised to find out that Shell carries about 2,000 litres of fuel in 50 litre drums to every race location.

The Oily bits

The process involved is very precise and complicated - the fuel samples have to be submitted to the FIA to be certified before the practice sessions start on Friday. Also, the F1 inspection team can take and test a sample out of the car, the barrels or the fuel rig at any point, over the race weekend and non-conformance of any sample means disqualification for the team. The fact that the chemically engineered fuel changes composition with changes in ambient temperature or even if stored for a long period of time, makes the job of the scientists tougher. Also that fuel regulations allow the fuel temperature when it is being filled in the race car to be a maximum of 10 degrees below the ambient temperature, just adds to their problems.

While we were talking about fuel regulations and how related technology has improved over the years, a technician came in with a sample from Fernando Alonso’s car. The car had a gearbox issue and they had to process and check the engine oil to see if there is something that could go wrong with the engine during the qualifiers or the race. The scientist took a drop of the oil sample and it was held between charged Carbon electrodes of an analysing machine. The optical sensor detects the different dispersion patterns of the vaporized oil based on which it is decided if the oil and engine health is okay to go ahead or that the engine is nearing a failure. Predictive analysis is a very important part of motorsports and the engine oil analysis is a handy tool. All this processing took a mere 30 seconds at the state-of-the-art laboratory and the results were out for interpretation.

Talking engineering

My journey to the pit area, was short. Ferrari technicians and engineers were busy fixing Alonso’s car while Felipe Massa’s car was standing on the mount ready to roar. We did not spend much time in the pits as the engineers were concentrating hard on prepping both the cars for the final practice, due in less than half an hour, and were busy with the final tweaks on the setups.

As I left the pits carrying on the conversation with Guy, we were discussing how these technologies gradually trickle down to the mainstream products, like the fuel and engine oil that we buy routinely. The less polluting, highly efficient, lighter engines that we get today in our production cars are a manifestation of the trickle-down effect. I was also surprised to know that the Shell lab is set up at the next race location even before the race car is unpacked!

A last look at the Shell-Ferrari pit

It is awe-inspiring to know what all goes behind making the champion drivers’ car run. The engineering, precision and expertise that went into building and monitoring even basic components like the fuel and oil shows the extent of attention given to every detail. The fuel that is burnt off in the race or the oil that gets fried by the time the race ends, are mere consumables just like things that get used up during our day-to-day commute. The engineering, precision and expertise that went into building and monitoring even basic components like the fuel and oil shows the extent of attention given to every detail. Millions of dollars are spent on creating new technology to extract more form every component. It is exactly for the above mentioned reasons that F1 cars are epitomes of engineering.

It had to be the greatest racing weekend I had ever witnessed, not that I have witnessed a lot till date. A 3,500km road trip, a peek into race engineering by Shell, precision engineering at the Ferrari pits, a superb qualifying session and the 2013 drivers’ championship being sealed by Sebastian Vettel at the Indian GP. The trivial details of fuel and lubricants might not feel as significant, but as Thomas Reid says ‘A chain is only as strong as its weakest link’ and Shell is certainly one of the stronger ones!