How Project Pitlane has changed F1's battle lines

The race bays of Formula 1 teams at this time of year are normally buzzing with activity as staff inspect, check and ready cars between their return and departure from races. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, the world isn't normal. Races aren't happening, and F1 factory shutdowns mean that no work is being done on the currently dormant cars.

However, that is not to say F1's brilliant brains have been idling. For example, if you had walked through Red Bull's factory at Milton Keynes over recent weeks, the frenzy of activity still going on in a few key areas would have been just as intense as if the season was underway. It's just the focus has been on something totally different.

But where the cars would usually be, there were now ICU beds and prototype ventilators. The battle right now isn't about beating the stopwatch, it's about helping save lives. Technicians weren't analysing suspension components, buffing bodywork or tightening bolts; instead, they were applying F1-grade thinking to the real-world problems of helping to design and build products that will aid the medical response to the pandemic.

All seven UK-based teams have become involved in what has become known as 'Project Pitlane', making use of their operational expertise to help fast track ideas and the production of ventilators and breathing aids.

The efforts have been split so far into three separate projects: the 'Ventilator Challenge' consortium coordinated by McLaren and involving all outfits, plus outside companies like Rolls Royce and Airbus; the CPAP breathing aid being produced by Mercedes (pictured below), and a portable and economical ventilator project known as BlueSky that Red Bull and Renault were involved in the development of.

Together, the efforts have resulted in orders for more than 20,000 units of ventilators and breathing aids that are now being produced as fast as possible.

Although the BlueSky project has not been taken forward by the government, because the NHS's fast-changing understanding of coronavirus has made clear that more sophisticated and bespoke ventilators are needed right now, that does not take away from the impressive effort put in by those at Red Bull and Renault.

Working collaboratively, the teams achieved what many other industry sectors would have struggled to do in such a short time frame. They helped turn an idea for a low-cost portable and scalable ventilator, proposed by junior doctor and NHS England Clinical Entrepreneur Programme member Alastair Darwood, into a prototype in just three weeks.

There was no faffing, no delays in time-wasting meetings and no hold ups in the decision-making process for what was a complicated R&D project. The Milton Keynes and Enstone teams pooled their best brains together, tapped into medical industry experts and supply chain access and got it done.

Underlying bonds that tie paddock figures together, which perhaps have become strained in the past amid on-track rivalries and off-track politics, are now more solid than they have ever been

Darwood himself worked night and day with the two teams' engineers to keep things moving. Senior F1 designers put in the kind of 18-hour days that are more normal ahead of new car launches to make the BlueSky project a reality so quickly. And, while all that was happening, the two teams got their factories ready with hundreds of staff, mechanics and technicians all volunteering to start production of the devices in the race bays and clean rooms.

Forget being able to deliver a pitstop in under two seconds, or deliver a new front wing that is 0.2 seconds a lap quicker. The last weeks have been a much greater indication of the strength and spirit of the F1 community.

Out of the Project Pitlane efforts have also come some great stories of how F1's best brains aren't blinded by always having to chase the most complicated and expensive solutions available to them. McLaren has shown that sometimes the best answers are the simplest, with 150 staff across its entire group having been focused on medical projects in recent weeks.

As work at its machine shop has continued to help produce ventilator parts, it has had to carefully balance the need to keep production up with ensuring the safety and well-being of its employees through social distancing. So instead of having one operator per machine, it has had to reduce its head count and have one person operating four machines across the shop floor.

The difficulty with doing this, which has been further exacerbated by the need to wear personal protective equipment (PPE), is that it was hard for the operators to know when each machine cycle had finished. So, after some head-banging over how to minimise the time-loss of machines sitting idle, an innovative solution was put in place - and some orders for football referee whistles were put out.

The operators knew that the final task that each machine did on a cycle was to blow air over the part being machined to get rid of any remaining swarf (the small pieces of metal that remain after machining). Having installed the whistles and in a location where the air was being blown through them, a simple but effective audible warning system was established to ensure that downtime was minimised. Word has it that these whistles have now been painted in full McLaren papaya orange and blue...

Beyond feel-good stories like that, there are other important factors at play in the current climate that could have a lasting impact on the sport. Anyone who has followed F1 over recent years needs no reminding about the tensions that existed between Red Bull and Renaul,t as their once title-winning relationship ended in a rather acrimonious divorce.

But none of that mattered at all when it came to working together on the Project Pitlane tasks. The response from the two factories was as though they were as one unit in battle, and is a clear example of the unifying process among teams throughout this recent experience as they band together against a common evil.

Underlying bonds that tie paddock figures together, which perhaps have become strained in the past amid on-track rivalries and off-track politics, are now more solid than they have ever been.

The familiarities between everyone involved in F1 and acceptance that the sport can be greater when working together - and when flexibility is thrown into the equation - has not only been a force for good in the coronavirus fight.

Hopefully those very same qualities can play a part in helping F1 plot its way towards a secure future when the current crisis is over.