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....heard over the Ferrari radio on race day - "Kimi, be prepared to jump out of the car and change your own tyres on your second pit stop. The guys have reached their 40hrs, and have checked out and gone to the ice-cream bar." :pQuote:
Originally Posted by ioan
After a bit of googling, current EU legislation limits the work week to 48hrs, with several countries having an "opt-out" law where this limit can be exceeded.Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
You beat me to it Firstgear.
Ioan there is absolutely no chance you would be a race mechanic. If by some chance you got hired you would be dehired within hours with your attitude.
Race mechanics don't give a (insert brown stuff here) about EU laws.
If there are any legal questions the teams would probably hire them as 'independent contractors' rather than employees.
Think about 24 hour races plus the practice. Every one there works more than a 40 hour week including the drivers with practice and qualifying.
As I said before race mechanics are a different breed.
Even with amatuer racing I put in 50 to 70 hours a week on the car plus I had a full time weekday job!
With pro racing 40 hours straight was not uncommon and I worked on the car 7 days a week when the car was in the shop. Time off was when the car was travelling to another race and I flew home. Sometimes I travelled with the car but when the race was more than a 500 miles away I usually flew home, unless we were racing the following week. Then I stayed with the car on the road and started working as soon as we got to the next track. Travelling is part of the work on the job.
The F1 crew that drive the rigs to the track also are either on the race crew or work the hospitality/team rigs. Driving from the UK to some of the races is more than a 24 hr. haul alone.
I'm pretty sure Ioan has already said he didn't/doesn't want to be a mechanic. He was just mis-informed with regards to EU legislation. And as many have said already even if those rules were in place race engineers would find a way round it as its the job they love. They are the true unsung heroes of F1 (and motorsport in general).
The limit has been reduce this year, and there is talk about reducing it even further in order to reduce unemployment rates.Quote:
Originally Posted by schmenke
I've just seen in the news that the country with longest work week in Europe is Romania with 41.8 hours/week while shortest is in France with 35 hours/week.
That's normal, I'm way to overqualified for that, something like 10 years of scientific formation over what is needed to be a mechanic. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Easy Drifter
In fact engineers can work more than the limit, for example in France where the work week in 35 hours/week engineers can work extra hours and get paid good money for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic
It's the manual labor that is limited to a certain amount of work hours/week.
My aren't we full of ourselves.
F1 Race mechanics are every bit as intelligent as you and the engineers probably more so.
I know you are a super fan but you are so far out on this you are in outer space.
As I said read Steve Matchett's books.
You probably won't as you might learn something about the real and gritty side of F1.
Putting down any mechanic, road or race, is a very ignorant position to take.
I used to respect most of your posts but now-----. What I really think would probably get me banned.
I will now shut up before I really lose my temper.
Mods, especially Pino and Starter I am sorry. I am just seething.
Once, and if/or when I calm down, I will start a thread in Chit Chat relating to race car mechanics/engineers/ designers and what it is like.
I knew 'joe blow' public thought that the crew and drivers did zip between races but didn't think anyone as keen as 'ioan' was that naive.
All F1 teams are based around where?Quote:
Originally Posted by ioan
Others have patiently pointed out how very wrong you are on this ioan but you might like to remember that France and the UK are very different. In France, they tend to stick to the regs regarding hours worked a week. I remember the Storms in December 1999 and the special dispensation workers had to get from Local Mayors to work longer than their designated working week in order to carry out emergency repairs.
In the UK, most people are contracted between 35 and 40 hours per week and as I said, outside of Local Government, you would not be looked upon too kindly if you started getting all niggley about sticking to it, especially in the current climate.
One of my engineers for example was working on a situation to 23:00 last night with the Chinese and was in work by 10:00 this morning. This is pretty normal.