The race before the race07 May 2018

Some of the most pampered trucks in the world carry the cars, equipment and hospitality facilities of the McLaren F1 race team across Europe (the first European race of the 2018 season, in Barcelona, is contested on the 13th).

Although the trucks don’t do many miles compared to regional hauliers, the team depends on them every time, because the race won’t wait. Last month, fleet manager Ian Barnard explained how the trucks, and drivers, are an integral part of the race team. Unlike hauliers, whose drivers work independently all day, McLaren’s drivers share trucks, hotel rooms and join in the cooperative spirit of the team as a whole. The trucks often travel in convoy, and when they arrive and park up at a venue, drivers swarm to clean and polish them. No one-driver, one-truck policy here. And when the teams aren’t on the road, the drivers aren’t either; instead, they have to report for work at the team’s Woking headquarters, which Barnard admitted was difficult for some.

Two years ago, McLaren switched to Volvo as truck supplier, purchasing a fleet of left-hand drive Volvo FH540 4x2s to tow box, curtain and fridge trailers. A team technician monitors the fleet constantly and books 12-weekly servicing appointments wherever the trucks are scheduled to be (in the UK, it’s Milton Keynes). Barnard adds that he has found Volvo’s European dealers willing to fix trailer faults (such as brake issues), which other dealers wouldn’t touch.

That’s not all. At the Belgian Grand Prix last August, dealer Truck Service SA in Malmedy saved the day. After the race, a team member discovered that a McLaren brand centre truck had been damaged by a forklift. As luck would have it, the truck was due to head directly to the Italian Grand Prix the next day, as the third truck into the paddock. The Volvo dealer sent a recovery truck, stripped the intercoolers and radiators off another vehicle in the dealership, and got the McLaren tractor working. In the end, it was less than three hours late to Monza and no-one in the team even realised the extent of the problem.

McLaren is certainly well resourced (this year, it is replacing all of the tractors). But, like many companies of more modest means, it lives and dies by its logistics. And last summer the team that won the race was a group of workshop technicians in a small Belgian truck dealer.

Author
Will Dalrymple

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