The Mechanic’s Tale

by Steve Matchett

  I asked one of the fabricators which of the multitude of materials in the metal storeroom I could use without leaving them short for their work. ‘Anything,’ I was told, ‘use whatever you need, none of it is reserved or allocated yet.’ I had never seen such an array of different metals: mild-steel, stainless-steel, several grades of aluminium, and countless pieces of brass, hydural and copper. Some of it was in large sheets ready to be marked, cut, folded and welded; others were in great ingots and blocks, waiting to be machined. Most of the material had been marked with a colour code or a series of letters and numbers, which, to a fabricator or machinist familiar with what the pinks and blues and whites or the Ns and Hs mean, will identify the material’s type and grade. It was all Greek to me. I decided on a big sheet of matt grey material, the colour of which suggested that it was a nice new piece of high-quality mild-steel; when I picked it out of the rack I was surprised at how light it appeared for such a big sheet. After setting the backstop on the automatic guillotine to produce the right-sized cut, I quickly chopped the sheet into twenty small divider-sized pieces.

  Pleased with how easy and quick the job had seemed I returned to the race truck to fit out the drawers. Ten minutes later Tats came in carrying a set of tyre blankets and asked how I was getting on. I explained that I was organizing the drawers, proudly showing him my new dividers.

  He picked one up. ‘You’ve made these?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘a few minutes ago; how did you know I made them, aren’t they very good? They seemed both strong and light enough to me.’

  ‘They’re certainly good enough, too good I’d say. Who gave you the material?’

  ‘I just got it out of the rack; why, what’s up with it?’

  ‘Nothing’s up with it, but I wouldn’t show them to anyone else if I were you,’ he said, tossing the divider back on the others. Tats started to walk off, but I called him back, keen to know what was the problem with my first fabrication job.

  ‘There’s no problem with them,’ he reassured me, ‘it’s just that, personally, I wouldn’t have bothered using an entire sheet of titanium costing several hundred pounds a go, to have made them from. About three quid’s worth of NS4 ali would have done the job just as well. You’ve managed to produce the most expensive drawer dividers in the known world; well done!’ Tats went back to his growing stack of tyre blankets.

  Back upstairs, after confessing my sins to Nigel, I began organizing my new department, collecting the new carbon discs and pads from the stores en route. Thankfully, Nigel understood that it had been an honest mistake with the titanium; he didn’t seem at all overly concerned to be honest, but he did tell me to make certain I checked with a fabricator before I cut anything else into little pieces. I asked him if I should go and tell the fabricators what I’d done, but was advised that it would probably be more prudent to leave them well alone, at least for a couple of weeks. I had simply never seen titanium before; no excuse, I know. However, the upshot was that I did end up with a set of rather jaunty drawer dividers, which would have been the envy of the pit-lane if ever I’d dared show them to anyone.

  Each disc and pad that I received from the supplier was first weighed and labelled with indelible ink. Regardless of the fact that a particular batch of, say, a hundred pads should, in theory, be identical, I would weigh each of them and record their weight to within a single gram. This would show me which pads were slightly more dense than the others, and due to the front brakes working harder than the rears it was these denser, heavier pads that would be allocated to the front of the car. Not only that, but on a clockwise directional circuit (which the vast majority are) the most heavy pads would be given to the left-front brake, which will see marginally more work. So, the order of density would go, left-front, right-front, left-rear, right-rear. The same would be done to the discs too, and once the individual pieces had been graded into sets I would etch each part with its own serial/life number. This would allow me to wear-check the brakes at the end of each running session and keep track of exactly how every disc and pad was lasting in comparison to each other. The thickness of each component would be recorded before the cars ran and be recorded again at the end of the session. Subtracting one figure from the other would give the amount of brake wear for a known number of laps, and armed with this information it should be possible to calculate, on the Saturday night of a race weekend, which thickness of brake disc was needed and how much ducting the brakes would need to get the car to the end of the race. In theory, at least!

  While I was engrossed in all of this weighing and marking and etching of the brakes, and cleaning and inspecting the numerous calipers, Gordon Message, the team manager, climbed the stairs from the race-shop and introduced himself. He apologized for not meeting me sooner (I had been at Benetton for several weeks now) but, apparently, he’d just not had a spare minute. Had I settled in? Was everything okay? He’d heard that I’d joined the race team and the news had pleased him (I thought it best not to mention the titanium incident).

  ‘Yes, everything’s fine, I’m loving it. It’s like being in a different world,’ I said, nodding at the stack of fifty brake discs, each one costing close to £1000. Gordon laughed, looking at the £50,000 worth of soon-to-be scrap discs, and then glanced over the railing at the three race cars, collectively worth over £1.5 million, with their teams of mechanics carefully installing the Ford V8 engines. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed, ‘it is another world. Problem is I’ve been in it so long I can’t remember another one anymore; this is all that’s normal to me now!’ He gave another slight chuckle. A quietly spoken man and instantly likeable; we were to become good friends in later years.

  ‘Come and see me tomorrow morning,’ Gordon said. ‘Now you’re going racing we need to get you kitted out with all your team gear: shirts, trousers, shoes and whatever.’ The next night I went home with a big travel bag full of team kit, all made by Benetton (they even supply their mechanics with team-issue socks). That evening I tried on a pair of light blue work trousers and baggy white race shirt, a big Benetton emblem emblazoned on the back. I didn’t recognize the person who gazed back at me from the mirror.

  In a couple of days I would be flying off to Italy, a member of the Benetton Formula race team, to contest our cars in the 1990 Grand Premio di San Marino. Ferrari and Mansell would be there. McLaren and Senna and Ron Dennis would be there; Williams and Patrese too. How odd! Patrese, Senna, Mansell, Prost, Piquet. Nelson Piquet – three times World Champion – would be driving one of our cars; he and I work for the same boss. Nelson Piquet and I are team-mates! None of it seemed real. However, I wasn’t dreaming and over the next few days I definitely woke up. At Imola the reality of my new job hit me with a massive jolt too. Welcome to the wonderful world of Formula One!

  When I wrote Life in the Fast Lane, it wasn’t necessary to describe the lap-by-lap events of each round of the 1994 Championship, and it isn’t my intention now to describe the individual events of each race I attended throughout my time with Benetton. After all, there were exactly a hundred of them and much of what we do at one race is merely a repetition of what we did two weeks prior. However, Imola 1990, my first Grand Prix working with Benetton, was quite an exceptional race and those four days in early May remain etched in my memory.

  We left the factory at five o’clock Thursday morning. I set the alarm to wake me at four, which left me an hour to shower, dress and drive to Witney. Ample time. However, I had never had need to rise that early before in my life, and I soon found out that getting up at such a stupid hour wouldn’t come easy to me (and over the next few years I never really improved). Certainly, I was excited by the thought of going to Imola, but fatigue was making sleep come very easily. I’d been working quite late over the last few days, eight and nine o’clock, making sure that everything the chief mechanic and the engineers had asked me to take to Italy was carefully stowed in the truck and that all the paperwork was up to date. This event was going to be a bap
tism of fire for me, a very steep learning curve, and I didn’t want Nigel to change his mind after just one race to find myself back in sub-assembly.

  I must assume that the alarm did go off at four, but it was much closer to half-past by the time my subconscious had given up trying to conveniently fit the bleeping into the vague story-line of a dream. The bleeping persisted, and eventually I was left with no choice but to slowly open an eye and blink at the clock. I didn’t really approve of what I thought I saw. I opened both eyes and had another go. This was swiftly followed by hopping around the room trying to pull two socks on the same foot while throwing everything else to the floor in an attempt to find the car keys (I’d left them in the ignition so I wouldn’t lose them). It really was quite pathetic. Finally, though, most of the relevant brain cells flickered back online and I made the factory with five minutes to spare. I climbed on board the coach sporting a look which I hoped would convey to the team manager that everything was calm and under control. However, Gordon wasn’t there, and we had to wait half an hour for him as he’d overslept. When he did arrive, looking tired but completely unflustered, he apologized to everyone, gave a relaxed chuckle, lit a cigarette, and told the driver to get on with it. As the coach lurched and groaned towards Oxford and the M40, Gordon handed me an envelope. ‘Steve, this is for you, you’ll need it to get in the circuit, it’s your FOCA pass; it’ll get you in the paddock, the garages and the pit-lane. And they’re a real pig to get hold of, so please don’t lose it.’

  To put it mildly, Imola was absolutely physically and mentally exhausting. I had never felt so utterly washed out and drained in my entire life, and I had serious doubts that my feet would ever recover. To this day I have no idea how I managed to keep going from Thursday morning until Sunday night; I was completely knackered. On returning to England I slept in a deep trance-like state for twenty-four hours; Monday ceased to exist. When I finally did wake I was in exactly the same position, the pillows and quilt unruffled; I hadn’t turned once, even murmured, in all that time.

  On several occasions since that first race I have had to work for two or three days without any sleep at all (as, of course, do all Grand Prix mechanics), and the prospect of doing another terrifying ‘all-nighter’, or two, or three, becomes no more than an occupational hazard. They are detested, without doubt, but one just gets used to it, the mind adjusts. I never worked an actual all-nighter on that inaugural race in Italy; I came close, but I did manage to get a couple of hours back at the hotel. Some of the other mechanics weren’t so fortunate; a few, working directly on the cars, went right through from Friday morning to Sunday night (and they still looked fresher than me).

  I had no idea that the mechanics were expected to work so many hours. I just assumed that if the team encountered the sort of problems requiring extensive repairs or modifications they would simply withdraw the cars from the following day’s sessions. I supposed the mechanics would work until six or seven o’clock before going back to the hotel for dinner and a beer, then come back in the following morning to finish off. Then, if there was still time to get the cars out and get some lap-times in, so be it. How blissfully naive I was.

  After the first eight hours at the circuit my new, team-issue Timberland shoes started to pinch a little and rub the back of my ankles. After twelve hours my feet were actually quite sore. At fourteen hours they really started to hurt, and after sixteen hours I kicked them off and started beating them with a heavy plastic mallet. I hoped this might soften the leather a bit, but just the sight of the damn things being repeatedly squashed seemed to bring some comfort. I tried walking in just socks, and for a while the cool of the concrete floor in the garage was like heaven but, sadly, this brought only temporary relief and I was soon forced back into my flattened shoes. Now, after years of wearing them, I find Timberlands the most comfortable shoes on earth (this is not an endorsement), but the stiffness of that first pair combined with the long hours nearly had me in tears.

  The first practice session of my career started at 10 am precisely, on Friday, 11 May. I could sense the tension mounting as the hour drew closer. At nine o’clock everyone seemed fairly relaxed, sitting on the Lista cabinets, chatting, drinking coffee or standing at the front of the garage sharing a joke with other teams’ mechanics. I wasn’t sure if we were encouraged to talk with personnel from rival teams or whether it was a case of wishing them a polite good morning and moving swiftly on. I was relieved to discover that this wasn’t so; I’d already had a chat with one of the McLaren mechanics and hoped that no one had seen. (Caught by the Formula One Thought Police on my first day at the track.) At 9:30 the engines were run up to operating temperature in order to check that all was well and to put some heat into the water system. Nelson Piquet and Sandro Nannini walked into the garage at 9:45 am, the tyres were fitted with ten minutes to go and at 9:55 the whole team was ready. As the siren signalled the opening of the pit-lane the engines fired into life and my first frantic Grand Prix weekend really began.

  I managed to cope with the work without problem. During the practice and qualifying sessions I would dash between the three cars (in that era the team could use the spare car throughout the whole weekend), monitoring the brake temperatures and checking for any slight cracks that might appear in the carbon discs. The spare car would be built with one particular set-up and, depending who had use of it, either Piquet or Nannini would swap between his race car and the spare, comparing the differences. To minimize lost time, while one car was on the circuit the mechanics would be changing the wings, or springs, or roll-bars, of the other; then that car would be driven while the mechanics worked on the other. Everything was done double quick, flat-out, not a second was wasted. Push, push, push, get the car back out! This was totally different from the relaxed atmosphere of the factory. Time is a very precious commodity in Grand Prix racing, and when the cars are allowed to run they must do so. Ten minutes of lost track-time could make all the difference to finding that slight edge over the opposition.

  After the running was over I would measure the discs and pads, fill out a wear-check form and report my findings to Nigel or the engineers. At night I would prepare the fresh brakes for the next day’s running by bolting new discs on to the mounting-bells, which is a Benetton piece, a machined centre-hub allowing the one-size-for-all-teams disc to be adapted to the Benetton stub-axles (to suit their own cars, McLaren, Ferrari, Williams and all the other teams have their own mounting-bell designs).

  The Saturday night race preparation seemed endless, with new brakes, fresh engine, fresh gearbox, different rear suspension and modifications to increase the brake-duct intakes; basically the cars were totally rebuilt. By three in the morning, when Nigel finally allowed the mechanics not working directly on the cars to go back to the hotel, I was really struggling to stay awake. I couldn’t understand why we didn’t finish the work tomorrow. We had been at the circuit since seven the previous morning and in four hours’ time we would be back again. It seemed sheer madness to be working these hours, and all just to put two cars on the starting grid for Sunday’s race. I don’t think I’d ever been awake that late before. My feet throbbed, my fingers were numb; it was terrible. The glamour and the glitz of working for a Formula One team! I sat in the back of the minibus seriously questioning what on earth I was doing there. I had made a huge mistake, that much was certain. As soon as I got back to England I would try and get my old job back again with BMW; it was good there, a normal life, but this was plain insanity. How could the people around me still feel like chatting and joking? I felt like shouting: ‘For God’s sake! It’s three o’clock in the bloody morning, please just shut up!’ But I didn’t say anything, I just watched the blackness as the minibus bounced over the deserted mountain road towards the hotel and quietly planned my escape.

  Back in the bedroom my last conscious thought was how cool the marble floor felt and what a wonderful tonic it was for my two aching feet. Then, at the same instant as I sat on the edge of the bed, I was
asleep. Two milliseconds later my room-mate, Paul, was shaking me awake, ‘Steve, come on, it’s six-thirty. We’ve got to go.’

  I owe Paul Howard a great deal of thanks. Throughout my first year with Benetton he was always looking out for me, constantly waking and forcing me up in time for work the next day. Without his help I would have been sunk. In 1990 Paul was a gearbox mechanic, then he worked on the back-end of one of the cars, and he is now one of Benetton’s number-one mechanics – and currently (in 1998) he is running Alex Wurz. He is fabulously calm and meticulously well organized. If ever anyone had forgotten something or needed a special tool, Paul Howard would be able to help. Of course, he couldn’t help with everything, I mean, it would be most unlikely that he would have a street map of Springfield in his briefcase, but he might just have a rather dog-eared photocopy of the exact area you wanted to look at. Such organizational skills are a black art to me, but to him they are second nature. As an example: in 1996 during the quiet winter period known as the ‘off-season’, I was keeping myself occupied by assembling a B193 show car from the contents of several cardboard boxes which, apparently, contained everything I’d need. Eventually I found everything but one special bolt, a mounting for the rear suspension. I asked in the stores, but as the car was three years old they no longer had the part lists and couldn’t help. I thought I’d ask Paul, just on the off chance. Within thirty seconds of asking he had found his copy of the B193 assembly drawings, had written the part number down for me and told me exactly where, in the myriad of old parts kept at the back of the stores, I would find one. It’s a sort of magic with him.

  Anyway, I digress. Sunday, back at Imola, and I was in for another shock (it can’t be right when your feet still ache as you stand up the next morning). Gordon Message, the team manager, said he had a little job for me during the race. He needed someone to operate one of the two pit-boards. Stewart Spires, who ran the motorhome, would operate Nannini’s and Gordon wanted me to work Piquet’s. I quickly told him that I’d never used one before and that I thought he was asking the wrong man. But he seemed quite undeterred by this news, telling me not to worry and that I’d soon get into the swing of it. Get into the swing of it? I’d never used a pit-board before in my life, never even picked one up, never really studied what was displayed on them either. And now, the first time I was going to handle such a thing it would be used to communicate with a treble World Champion in a Grand Prix which was only an hour away from starting. Piquet’s pit-board? Had everyone gone completely loopy? How could I ever hope to work it correctly without any sort of training? And then I would have to confidently show the board to Nelson Piquet (Nelson Piquet!), telling him such things as his position in the race, how many laps to go, how much time he was behind the car in front; and, oh, by the way, Mr Piquet, can you just stop racing now and pop into the pits for some fresh tyres? Who was I to inform him of anything? It was like being asked to mix paint for Michelangelo. ‘Thanks very much, Steve,’ smiled Gordon, ‘I knew we could count on you; ask Stu if you’re not sure of anything.’