I stand awkwardly in the corner of the garage, desperately trying to stay out of everyone’s way. As two Team Brit McLarens are fettled and polished and then fettled and polished again, I can only marvel at the efficiency of the mechanics. With the cool Norfolk sunshine streaking onto the garage floor, I wonder if I will fit in at all.
The squad is competing at the British Automobile Racing Club meeting at Snetterton, and I’ve signed up for four days as a trainee mechanic to experience life in the pitlane. Given my inexperience, my first duties include vacuuming the garage, tidying the team truck, and polishing the cars.
Simple tasks, understandably, but ones the team still expects to be done a certain way and to a specific standard. Thankfully, multiple people can assist me when I need guidance on complex issues – like where the vacuum cleaner is.
One is engineering director and team manager Al Locke. With slicked-back hair and sunglasses, Locke is the stereotypical portrait of the modern team manager. He has a painstaking approach to detail and only really speaks when an issue must be rectified. An example is presented to me every time the cars leave the pits.
“Could we have a tidy up in the garage?” I hear over my headset from the softly spoken Locke. I turn around expecting a sea of spanners strewn across the floor and oily rags littering the garage carpet, but no.
Instead, the floors must be vacuumed and the extension leads organised. The modern mechanic must cope with keeping their work area surgically clean. This isn’t just to improve the quality of work; they have to think about the team’s image as well.
As the days pass, I work through to increasingly more important tasks. I get shown how to clean the wheels to remove vibration-inducing tyre marbles, adjust the tyre pressures and fuel the cars.
It seems quite repetitive to me and, crucially, exhausting. Across my four days at Snetterton, not once does the crew get back to the hotel before 2100. When you factor in 0630 starts, you won’t be getting your beauty sleep on this job.
If that isn’t enough, the environment in the pits is savage. As I fumble with the pressure gauge in the pitlane, the heat coming from the McLaren’s brakes is shocking in its intensity. I have to wear heat-resistant gloves to adjust the tyre pressures to give my hands a chance of protection.
"This is a high-pressure environment, the mechanics work long hours together so, if someone has an abrasive personality, they can’t be in the team"
Al Locke
If the heat isn’t harsh enough, then there’s the noise. You get used to the roar of the engines being warmed up, but never fully accustomed to the shriek of the wheel gun. You feel your senses are under siege.
Thinking about this, I wonder why anyone would do this job. Harsh working environment, long hours, and pay that isn’t great. A full-time number-one mechanic at this level can expect around £32,000 per year, which doesn’t feel like enough in my view. To counteract my scepticism, Team Brit mechanic Jack Webber sheds some light on what motivates him to go to work in the morning.
“Definitely getting to work on race cars,” says Webber. “Though also you have going to new tracks, new places and meeting new people. I’ve also learned so much more here compared to my old job as a BMW technician.”
There may be benefits, but you clearly need certain qualities to thrive in such a strenuous environment. Chief mechanic JJ Spencer appears to be the type of person required for the job. So what qualities does he think are needed to be a successful mechanic?
“One of them is determination,” he explains. “Another is being able to control your emotions. It’s incredible to see how someone’s work declines in quality once things stop going their way.”
An employer sometimes has different views from the employee on what constitutes the perfect hire, so it’s unsurprising that Locke has some thoughts of his own.
“It’s about turning up early, working late, and never complaining!” he explains. “Anyone can be a good mechanic, it’s about how good your work ethic is. You need to have reactivity too. I’ve seen things go wrong in the pits and some mechanics just stand there, not doing anything.
“It’s also about being a likeable person. This is a high-pressure environment, the mechanics work long hours together so, if someone has an abrasive personality, they can’t be in the team.”
For the races, I get to observe the team in action. I watch the pitstops during the British Endurance Championship contest after these have been choreographed earlier in the day. The wheels fly off and the new boots get thrown on. The cars are refuelled and the drivers changed. Then it’s all over. No commotion or shouting as I expected, just a symphony of mechanical noise.
“Thank God I wasn’t involved,” I think to myself. “There’s no way I could have done that.”
The evidence shows that this way of life isn’t for everyone, and only the most committed individuals will succeed in this part of the industry. However, even if you don’t intend to work in the pitlane, the mechanics still deserve your respect. Very few of us could do what they do.
