Inside an F1 team on a GP Friday

It's 6.55am and a queue is forming outside the paddock gates as the clock counts down to the end of the FIA-mandated curfew. It's like the opening day of Glastonbury, but with added artificial fabrics: uniformed team crews gather in knots to rush through like water from behind a bursting dam at 7am.

Force India have slotted into the queue behind polesitters Ferrari. Behind them, Red Bull and McLaren cluster in anticipation. But as I join my new team-mates for the day, it's clear there's a problem.

Two-dozen eyes swivel in my direction and contemplate the spectacle: team-issue shirt and shorts, Puma belt and black-and-orange trainers, and... white ankle-length Nike socks, the only element of the ensemble from my own wardrobe. The latter is clearly a sartorial error too ghastly to contemplate.

Heads are shaken, slowly. Eyes roll. Tuts are tutted. Air is wearily sucked in through teeth.

"We're going to have to sort you out..."

In fairness, your humble correspondent is not a habitual wearer of leisure garb. But these socks, while perfectly functional for sporting pursuits, are clearly infra dig in this environment. At 7am, without fanfare, we are invited to swipe through the gates and the influx begins.

As I rendezvous behind the Force India garage moments later with the two Wills - Hings and Ponissi, respectively the team's press attaché and social media guru - it's clear that word travels fast: Will H produces from his pocket a pair of black, low-cut Puma socks.

"It has come to my attention that you're off-brand, Codders," he says, shaking the replacement footwear in a reproachful manner.

Work on a GP Friday starts well before the car moves under its own steam © LAT

With a little under three hours to go until the cars are due to hit the track for the first time this weekend, breakfast isn't the first thing on the agenda. The two VJM08s were unpacked and assembled over Wednesday and Thursday, but as well as functional checks there's the essential process of pitstop practice to get through.

Two garages down, the Ferrari pitcrew are running through a flamboyant physical warm-up and stretching routine, in the manner of a football team pre-match. Force India's bolters view this with some amusement. This team can trace their ancestry back to the 1980s Eddie Jordan Racing Formula 3000 outfit - sporting director Andy Stevenson started his career here as a mechanic - and, though an atmosphere of levity prevails, they are hard-bitten racers all.

Race team coordinator Franco Massaro gives me my first task: I can shove it. The car, that is. Engine off, Sergio Perez's VJM08 must be propelled by hand into the waiting pit box.

Our headphones crackle with radio checks, and then chief race engineer Tom McCullough issues the first drill of the day: "Perez in the pits... dry tyres... plus one front wing..."

The car is rolled back to the extremity of the team's pit area and three of us - one on either side of the rear wing, me grasping the square edges of the crash structure and rear light - get ready to push.

"Crew in pitlane," instructs McCullough with the calm, precise, unwavering enunciation of an air traffic controller.

Getting 700kg+ of F1 car up to a jogging pace from a standstill requires a hearty shove - like the front row of a rugby team engaging in the scrum - and sure footwork. The dusty concrete of the pit apron is slippery; at one point my right foot skids out from beneath me and I almost fall.

Commercial requirements meant Codders swapped pushing for polishing © LAT

Time and time again we repeat the routine. McCullough sets a variety of tasks, including late calls and penalties, and the pitcrew dash out of the garage and set to, waiting for us to push the car into their waiting grasp.

Afterwards, McCullough reads out the time elapsed, and outlines how precisely the car stopped on its marks, with neither encouragement nor admonishment; his tone wanders no further than that of the reader of Radio 4's shipping forecast.

This is not the time to adjust pitstop procedures; it's simply a warm-up. At the end, he thanks everyone for their time and the crew heads off in stages to breakfast.

An hour or so before first practice, there's still plenty of small but necessary detail jobs to accomplish, as well as the main goal of ensuring the cars are functional.

The primary cleaning solvent used on the brakes has the side-effect of weathering any decals it comes into contact with, and one of the Skullcandy stickers in the 'Coke bottle' area of Nico Hulkenberg's car is looking grey around the edges. The lifestyle audio brand's distinctive skull-shaped logo is one of several in this sculpted and aerodynamically critical area; I mark two edges with a wax pencil, and pick and scrape off the old decal.

There's nothing wrong with its adhesive qualities and it yields only grudgingly. I rub and polish around the vacated area carefully, leaving just a trace of the positional marks, peel the back off a new sticker and press it on carefully, scraping out air bubbles with a straight-edged piece of plastic. Voila! Optimal commercial visibility restored.

Two self-built fuel bowsers, named Bert and Ernie after the Sesame Street characters, form the border between the two sides of the garage. Today Ernie is servicing Sergio Perez's car, and it is with some apprehension that I hold a fire extinguisher - pin out - and aim it at the car while the 10kg of fuel that was in there for the engine warm-up is pumped out, and the first load for practice is decanted into the tank.

More legwork, this time transporting tyres around the paddock © LAT

In the general hubbub of the garage, Ernie's work is virtually silent: the two pipes, one carrying fuel, the other acting as a breather, twitch like electrified snakes. The amount sent is compared, on a clipboard, with the quantity required. Job done for now.

Both VJM08s are as yet becalmed, aloft on the high-tech equivalent of axle-stands, and without wheels. I am called upon to address this, marrying a Motegi Racing alloy, wrapped in a new Pirelli P-Zero, to the front-right of Perez's car.

It's surprisingly light for its size, but because of the carbonfibre ducts and shrouds surrounding the actual hub and carrier, bulls-eyeing it onto the spindle takes quite a lot of practice. It's a testament to the skill of pitcrews up and down the grid that we see so few botched pitstops when the cars are stationary for less than three seconds.

The wheel gun is something else: startlingly violent in motion, and with a kickback like a shotgun. A sliding bolt at its rear controls the direction of motion - righty-tighty, as a bicycle mechanic might say, and anticlockwise to undo. The nut is flanged like a jet turbine, rather than square-edged, so you have to lean in and add bodyweight or the gun just kicks back, skipping fruitlessly over the flanges.

Since it tightens the nut to a specified torque, knowing when to let go of the trigger and withdraw is a question of feel and experience. I have neither of these: the first time I let go too soon, the second time I hang on too long - in a pitstop, a waste of time. But at least Perez can essay his first laps today without fear of returning on three wheels.

As the minutes tick by, the garage becomes even busier, with engineers and mechanics purposefully yet delicately dodging around one another in the confined space. Every minute of Friday seems to be accounted for, with checklists to work through, systems to prepare, tyres to bake gently in their warmers - and, finally, drivers to belt into place. Nico and Sergio arrive at the same time and bid a cheery good morning to their bolters.

Time to step up to the social media plate. Force India are known for their relatively informal, fan-friendly approach, and as Will P hands over his phone he says: "This will be the first session I haven't done in three years..." This is very much his baby. What are those hashtags again? #bestfans. #FeelTheForce. How hard can it be? Moderately, it turns out, as I somehow contrive to switch the iPhone to Norwegian and incur a horror show of autocorrect shunts.

Unsurprisingly the scribe was most at ease on press-release duty © LAT

Now, F1 Racing has over 133,000 followers on Twitter from all over the globe. Force India has 334,000, similarly geographically disparate.

This is not a time for complex wordplay (well, perhaps a little) or easily misinterpreted puns. Or perhaps it is. I quickly take a snap of Perez's beard and tweet it with the hashtag #FeelTheFuzz. It meets with a positive and amused response. Let's go further. Any requests? Most respondents ask for a picture of "whoever Force India's regular Tweeter is". Will P, it appears, is something of a cultural icon.

During practice the radio dialogue is sparse and functional. It's clear that regardless of the circumstances behind the late introduction of the B-spec VJM08 - in effect what the car should have been at launch - the engineers have a clear understanding of its behaviour.

Perez is evaluating a different Carbone Industrie braking material - and not much liking the feel of it at first - but race engineer Tim Wright reassures him it will 'bed in', and gently steers the conversation to more germane topics, such as the overall balance of the car. Any changes are made individually and in small increments. There's no question of chasing a setup.

While Sergio's car is on the stands with the front wing off for an anti-roll bar tweak, Franco Massaro reappears with a spray can of cleaning fluid and a rag: some more hands-on work beckons. A clean car is a fast car, after all...

"This is a good opportunity to clean the front wing," he says. "Make sure there are no blockages between the elements, check for any damage - but watch out for sharp edges!"

Not only is polishing the front wing and nose section technically fascinating and somehow therapeutic, but on Sergio's next run he goes fastest of all through the speed trap. F1 Racing can truly claim to be an influential publication.

Force India's on-track success is unlikely to be down to our man's polishing skills © LAT

While those watching on television may view free practice sessions as 90 minutes in which little happens, in the garage there is a constant sense of pressure to accomplish the programme.

When Hulkenberg has to abort his planned long run after one lap because of a fuel leak - the instruction to have extinguishers to hand and get the blowers on the brakes ASAP is the only time tension creeps into McCullough's voice - the driver fidgets constantly while his car is attended to. No sooner is it ready than he drags his balaclava and helmet back on - not noticing there's only two minutes of the session left.

The chequered flag ushers in the next race against time: two and a half hours to clean, prep and check the cars, and for the drivers and engineers to digest and learn from the data ahead of the next session. Behind the garage I'm introduced to two "paddock legends", Neil Dickie and 'Biscuit' - as you'd expect of a tight-knit globetrotting equipe, Force India is a veritable hotbed of nicknames. Neil has been in and around motor racing since the early 1980s, as a flag marshal as well as a mechanic and tyre technician, while Biscuit warns that his sobriquet's backstory is not suitable for publication in a family magazine.

Throughout the session Neil has been wheeling in stacks of tyres, and constantly checking temperatures and pressures. Now every wheel has to be cleaned and checked for damage before going back on the trolley for conveyance to the Pirelli tent.

"I'm very particular about wheel cleanliness," he warns as I dunk a brush in the roiling cauldron of dilute detergent and agitate it betwixt the alloys' spokes.

While guests in the Paddock Club two floors above nibble at canapés and sip champagne, lunch in the Force India garage is taken standing up whenever a spare moment offers itself.

The dispensing area is in one corner, behind a partition, offering a choice of well-stuffed baguettes, tubs of nuts and dried fruit, energy drinks, water, and a main-course choice of pasta in tomato sauce or chicken with noodles. The coffee machine, too, is a popular destination as the crew arrives in bursts to grab and run.

Busy nature of GP Fridays mean cohesive environment in the garage is key... © LAT

From one moment to the next it can go from silence to commotion, and I assist catering supremo Josie Warrington in dishing food onto plates as she gets on the radio to order up more noodles. Between 60 and 80 people at any given grand prix weekend rely on this service as their sole post-breakfast repast until dinner time, and the delivery mechanism has to run smoothly and quickly so as not to delay work on the cars.

A fresh consignment of stir-fried poultry, vegetables and soy-kissed carbohydrate arrives just in the nick of time.

As the clock starts to count down to second practice, the pace of activity within the garage increases palpably. People scurry around. Airguns are stretched on their pneumatic hoses, earplugs are surreptitiously licked, and belts are tightened.

The following hour and a half are absolutely crucial to the success of the day, and as the crew work hard to extract every grain of meaningful running time from the session, I recommence the Twitter takeover, filling in the informational gaps during the long runs by engaging in ephemeral chatter with the Mercedes and Lotus teams' Tweetists. This also meets with the approval of the Force India fans, one of whom advises, "Don't bother with McLaren. They don't do banter."

Many sports fans rightly consider 'public relations' to be a shady art, but in the midfield of the Formula 1 grid its practitioners are seldom called upon to duck and dive. Hulkenberg's eyes roll as he takes in the sight of a journalist dressed in team garb, but both he and Perez enthusiastically outline their thoughts on the day into my waiting Dictaphone for the purposes of the team's Friday press release, which is the work of a moment.

"This is a very well-written press release," clucks Will H as he passes an eye over the finished item, "but then of course I'd expect nothing less."

...and our man discovered there is no such thing as too much polishing © LAT

Less edifying is the curious business of hovering by the drivers as they're interviewed for television. The darkest Oakley's in my collection firmly in place, I retreat as far out of shot as possible while Nico is grilled by RTL outside the team's hospitality tower.

One day, when I learn to speak German, I may play back the conversation to hear what was actually said. Almost opposite, by the trucks, Neil and Biscuit chuckle at the scene as they sluice detergent and brake dust from the latest batch of used wheels.

Like the shopkeeper from Mr Benn, Franco Massaro manifests himself once more. "Sooty needs your help cleaning the floor," he says. Photographer Jed hoots with mirth at the prospect of committing this image to posterity, but his laughter turns to ashes in his mouth as he is politely denied entry to the back of the garage. It's not that floor, you see.

Inside, both cars are now wheel-less and up on stands, partially disassembled: the front suspension, tub, engine and gearbox remain, but the floors - one piece, from splitter to diffuser - have been separated and racked horizontally on a trolley.

We vacuum-clean the empty engine bay and polish the whole floor before flipping it over and prying off the front section of the wooden plank, along with its titanium skid plates. The sight of a piece of wood bonded to such a high-tech vehicle never ceases to astound.

"This one's been on since Spa," says Sooty, "so we need to change it, and check the bottom of the floor for damage. The aero guys want it to be as flat and smooth as possible."

He measures the new skid plates with a micrometer, records the results on a clipboard, eases them into place on the new plank, and then we bond it to the underfloor with sealant and double-sided tape.

Outside, the track is almost silent in comparison to before; the support categories have finished their running for the day. We rub the leading edges of the diffuser with emery paper and polish away the dust.

There are some F1 Racing duties to attend to up in the press room, so at just after 6pm I take my leave. The garage will remain a hive of activity until at least 10pm. So as I bid adieu it's no surprise that one of my new team-mates calls out.

"Half day, is it?"

As well as Stuart Codling's effort at Force India, this month's issue of F1 Racing carries an interview with Fernando Alonso.

What motivates Alonso to carry on in Formula 1, nearly a decade after he won his last world titles? That question is yet more pertinent as the 2015 season winds down with him at the tail end of the grid in a hopeless car. The answer is simple: passion.

Intense, sometimes temperamental, often inscrutable, Alonso is regarded by many of his peers as the best of his generation, but also as an enigma. In this no-holds-barred interview, Alonso lays bare his motivation for racing, his rage to win.

Also in this issue, currently on sale, we investigate the FIA's Medical Car and its occupants, in whose hands lies front-line responsibility for emergency assistance; we check out Red Bull racer Daniel Ricciardo's new line in go karts; Pastor Maldonado answers YOUR questions, and Sergio Perez takes us for a spin around the newly rebuilt Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez ahead of next weekend's Mexican Grand Prix.