Miles and more: with 18 appearances on four continents this season, Formula 1 will cover roughly 100,000 kilometres – and it does not travel light. WilliamsF1 alone ships 24 tons of material to an overseas race, and an extra six tons comes from engine partner BMW. The European races actually have a few tons more. There are lots more machines on board due to the fact that the trucks are converted into extremely well-equipped workshops at the race track. This allows highly complicated tasks to be performed on the cars during a Grand Prix weekend.

There is a simple golden rule for the Formula 1 caravan: take as little as possible – but take everything you need. A 80-page-long checklist records meticulously what should be in the freight boxes. Always included are two cars and one spare car, mounted on pallets for the flight, so that they can be placed on top of each other into the cargo area of a Boeing 747. Then there are one chassis and all the spare

parts – six of each – plus tools, wheels and pitlane equipment. In addition, BMW supplies five to six engines for each race with tools and spare parts.

The basic equipment for the BMW WilliamsF1 team at the race track includes 16 computers and 26 notebooks. Fast communication is a vital prerequisite for top performance, so 100 radio units plus headphones are also in service. Don’t forget all those useful things that make life bearable in the paddock and that are necessary to cater for VIP guests – ranging from an espresso machine to a vacuum cleaner and 1,500 paper napkins with the team logo. “All in all,” calculated Dickie Stanford, “we are easily looking at almost 10,000 single items.” And furthermore, there are 3,000 bottles of mineral water for the team.

In contrast to overseas trips, races in Europe are a logistics routine for the teams. WilliamsF1 uses two articulated lorries, two trucks, deployed as workshops and offices in the paddock, and a mobile home. The BMW HQ in Munich sends out one lorry, a truck for the technicians and an additional mobile home. For overseas races, it is all about improvisation in the paddock as the trucks are left at home. Formula 1 still travels with lots of luggage: one complete paddock is equivalent to the storage volume of eight jumbo jets. Regardless of the continent visited by Formula 1, everything is where it should be, at the latest on the Wednesday before the race.

Trucks with the workshop equipment start out roughly 10 days before the first practice session. This advance party sets up the team pitlane, paints the floor, mounts monitors to the wall and uses 500 metres of data cable and 300 metres of power cable to install an extensive computer network. Trucks with the cars on board leave later. Similarly, jumbos chartered by Formula 1 take off roughly nine days before an overseas race. The BMW WilliamsF1 team sends its equipment out from London – as do the majority of teams. For Ferrari, Sauber and Minardi a 747 takes off from Milan.

Teams can take up to one and a half days to pack the equipment, but when returning from an overseas race the time available to pack the equipment is slashed to between four and five hours. The ‘Formula 1 Airline’ is run on a tight schedule. Each manoeuvre has to be perfect. It is all down to extreme teamwork; everyone has to be able to rely on their team colleagues. To ensure that everything is where it should be when arriving at the next event on the Formula 1 calendar, each part is packed at precisely the place designated for it. And time is money. It is not life that punishes those who arrive too late, but Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone – with a stipulated penalty.