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Comment by neals | Hacker News Reader

As a sponsor of Formula 3, I got to visit a Formula 3 / Formula 2 team yesterday and have to say, the racing sport it just insane. The amount of knowledge and effort and money it takes for a team to operate, just below break-even, it's on another level. I think racing must have some of the most passionate people in any industry.

Also a fun fact on one of the businessmodels in racing: the team operates like a specialized car-rental service. They do everything, except drive. The driver has to rent the seat for a season, this is where the team makes money.

Then there's 2 or 3 drivers. Of these, one is talented, the others are there for their funds.

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There is often a popular resentment of "pay drivers" for not being up to the standards of top driver talent. But the fact is that anything but the top levels of the sport would not exist without their involvement. Motorsports is an incredibly expensive venture.

I know someone who was in alcohol funny cars (drag racing) for years. Someone bought his seat out one year. On paper it seemed like a good deal for the team. Their first two races they crashed the car, basically nullifying the money they brought.

Was the driver not responsible for that financially? It’s my (limited) understanding that crashes due to non-mechanical failures are the financial responsibility of the driver.

Not sure what agreement they had. I could see that making sense, though.

Thats a bit like objecting to talking negatively about chemo. Sure it can treat cancer, but it would be better if it wasn't needed at all.

The logistics of delivering support for one race car as opposed to three doesn't change too much.

There's a certain set of specialty tools and equipment (also staff) that's required to support one car. Supporting two/three doesn't take too much more.

For quite a few years, my business provided race support for 8-10 kart racers. Space and logistics for transporting things was probably the biggest concern.

How do the teams get the truckloads of stuff from race to race, especially internationally? I assume everything connected by land is able to be traversed by road/rail in time to make the next race. Do they put a whole truck on a plane? Do they have trucks on every continent and just move palettes of stuff?

People shave flown with hard cases full of carbon fibre car parts before now

I assume they rent trucks for most of the Grand Prix but since England and Milton Keynes is the home of F1 teams most can drive to Europe ahead of a race weekend.

IIRC there are cargo flights specifically chartered for F1 teams (sharing an aeroplane).

Edit: Yep, provided by DHL who are also a sponsor https://www.wired.com/2014/11/ship-f1-car-across-globe-36-ho...

This youtube video does a good job explaining the crazy logistics of the F1 calendar. Multiple cargo ships constantly in motion, overnight truck deliveries, all in very carefully orchestrated ballet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLVFa8YRfM

So Clarkson was right when he said that the fastest car in the world is a rental car?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYt9DO5WXr8

And those drivers are called „paydrivers” because they pay for having the seat to sit in.

One has to note though, those paydrivers aren't the best possible people to drive those cars for sure, but many of them are very, very talented drivers - just not enough to be sitting there purely on merit.

We all, for example, made fun of Nikita Mazepin, many calling him Mazespin and such (and hated him for his personality etc.). Even that kid was better (in some ways) than a lot of non-F1 drivers with quite successful racing careers.

There are some embarrassing examples we all know, but I'd say 80% are really good, just not F1 (or 2, 3) level.

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