F1 | McLaren and Alpine: hospitality arriving from Imola late

‘Back-to-back’ race weekends, i.e. consecutive ones without the traditional week off, are a logistical nightmare for teams. If Monte Carlo is involved, a venue certainly not prepared to host an event like a Formula 1 Grand Prix, the efforts multiply together with the difficulties.

This morning, upon entering the paddock, the delays in setting up many hospitality venues were not lost on all those involved. “Paradoxically it is better to have two consecutive intercontinental Grands Prix – explained a team logistics manager – in that case there are no hospitality facilities, you load the race material into the crates set up for air transport and off you go. The whole of Formula 1 is moving as a unit.”

In the European races (Imola was the first) each team moves independently, and in addition to the transport of the race material there are also the hospitality teams, which move by land (from 6 to 18 trucks necessary for the movement of a single unit) and which above all require a great deal of work for the set-up and subsequent dismantling.

In back-to-back Grands Prix the dismantling lasts until Monday, then the transport to the next circuit begins and from here the fight against time for the next set-up.

There are several cases where the units are double. Red Bull in Monaco sets up its (giant) hospitality on a barge which is then transported to the port of Monte Carlo. In this case, by having a double unit, Red Bull saves itself the tour de force of having to forcefully dismantle the hospitality used in Imola, having already set up another one in Monaco. This case also includes (often but not always) Mercedes and Ferrari, which have double units available.

This is not the case with Alpine and McLaren, which are currently still far from having completed the set-up work. Their riders’ traditional Thursday press conferences have thus been moved from the hospitality to the media-pen (the enclosure after the riders meet with the media at the end of the sessions) in the hope of completing the work in time for tomorrow. All this while challenging the great logistical limits of Monte Carlo, where exceptional transport during the week of the Grand Prix is ​​a greater undertaking than the 70 laps that await the drivers on Sunday.