How the UK's busiest team is surviving a global pandemic

It's the UK team that's involved in more championships than any other operation. And it's British motorsport's biggest single-seater squad outside Formula 1.

This season, Carlin had been gearing up to run up to 18 open-wheel machines in the IndyCar Series, FIA Formula 2, FIA Formula 3, Euroformula Open, BRDC British F3 and British Formula 4, along with its single-car effort in the European Le Mans Series and the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The workshop at its Farnham premises - or workshops, if you include its Florida IndyCar offshoot - are full of cars, trucks and equipment, yet empty of people as the coronavirus pandemic puts motorsport on hiatus.

As you read this, Carlin should have competed in 30 races so far in the calendar year 2020. Instead, it's contested just three; the events that finished off the 2019-20 Asian Le Mans Series schedule. This month, the 'boys in blue' should have been heading off to Indianapolis, Detroit, Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Pau, Monza - plus Snetterton and Thruxton for the really lucky ones.

None of that is happening.

"All the championships are in the same boat," muses team boss Trevor Carlin (below), who's in the workshop to catch up on tasks and talk to Autosport. "They're all closed down at the moment, so it's more a case of when we can envisage them opening up."

The big difficulty for a team such as Carlin, you would imagine, is that the customers (generally the drivers, or their dads) have signed contracts under which the team provides the car and the staff to drive on a designated number of races and test days. As the COVID-19 fallout lingers, it will become more and more difficult for any team to fulfil that.

But Carlin is optimistic - and certainly, TOCA's announcement of an August kickoff for the British Touring Car Championship (and, therefore, the British F4 support series) appears to back that up.

"Certainly with your British F4 and your British F3, those guys have been on fairly intensive test programmes since the end of January anyway, so they had all of February testing and the beginning of March," he says.

"We ran until pretty much the last day we were allowed to. So we've done a fair amount of testing with those guys already because it's open testing up until the beginning of the championship, so we like to cram in as much as possible, especially with the rookies. From a financial point of view we've spent an awful lot of the money; they've had a lot of their value already.

"With other championships it's slightly different. The EFO, we'd started testing and then that was closed down fairly early. It certainly does vary, and different drivers have different payment schedules. At the end of the day, we can't work out exactly where everyone stands until we know how much racing we're actually going to get done.

"If people are having financial hardships, the first thing that will go will be the motor racing budget, and quite understandably so" Trevor Carlin

"Effectively our agreements are for x amount of test days and x amount of races. If from the end of July until 31 December we get all that testing and racing in, then we've given those drivers the value they've paid for so it's all good. It's just all being crammed into a short period. There might be a few more wet races than dry races!

"I think the British championships, they've got a very high chance of getting their races done. TOCA will obviously get the priority in British motorsport and access to the tracks, and then British F3 will have high priority because Jonathan [Palmer, series organiser] owns a lot of the circuits.

"So I think we're in good shape in that respect. Obviously they've got British Superbikes they've got to fit in as well, but if you've got those main three packages circulating through the UK between summer and November you could easily get the weekends in."

One big concern is the impact of coronavirus upon economies and businesses. Motorsport is expensive, and most Carlin drivers are the sons of successful businessmen. Wind back to the financial crash of the late 2000s, and within just a few years the UK had lost its two premier single-seater series; the old British F3 and Formula Renault UK. If a heavy recession now impacts on today's karters, that leaves fewer young drivers to come through the ranks in the seasons to come.

"Absolutely, and at the end of the day motor racing is not a necessity - it's not like food and shelter," agrees Carlin. "If people are having financial hardships, the first thing that will go will be the motor racing budget, and quite understandably so.

"In the same breath, people that have got money tend to be well organised and have plans in place for disaster-type scenarios. They tend to keep hold of their money a little bit better, should I say. They have a bigger buffer."

But there are always those who are less well-financed than others.

"Yeah, it's fiercely expensive anyway, motor racing, at any level from F4 upwards," adds Carlin. "If you're on the edge anyway, this will be the bit that will push you over, for sure."

The same goes for teams and the motorsport industry in general. Single-seater season budgets are in many cases pared down as far as possible so that they are affordable, and the teams aren't profiting a great deal on them. It's testing that can be lucrative. In that respect, the relatively open testing rules in EFO, British F3 and British F4 can make all the difference.

"If people have got the money to go testing and the circuits are available, we'll go," asserts Carlin. "We've already let all the circuits know that we'll be on them as soon as we're allowed to by the government, to fulfil our agreements, and if there's people from other championships that can't go testing we'll offer them testing.

"We've got a lot of cars here, so why not get them out working and try to get some income in to make up for what we're losing over these next few months?"

As a contrast, the Bruno Michel-run FIA F2 and F3 series ban any testing outside the official days. Carlin is hopeful that "once things start to clear up they'll organise a couple of days' test for each of the championships, and then we'll join onto the Formula 1 package and be racing pretty much every weekend I'd imagine."

That is, of course, massively dependent upon whether any European grand prix season takes place. Trident team chief Giacomo Ricci has suggested in the Italian media that perhaps F2/F3 can go their own way and run standalone events outside the F1 circus, but Carlin doesn't think that's feasible, owing to safety measures taken since Anthoine Hubert's fatal accident at Spa last September.

"The [F2] cars now are too dependent on the F1 electronic set-ups and systems with regards to safety. Nothing's impossible, but certainly if you wanted to run it with all the warning systems that have been introduced then it wouldn't be possible. It would be too expensive.

Over in the States, the IndyCar season is slated to get under way at Texas Motor Speedway in early June, but all eyes will be on the success or otherwise of NASCAR's attempt to resume racing this month

"More safety stuff has been put on the cars, and that's dependent on the F1 communications system. Basically what happened [at Spa] was [Giuliano] Alesi had a puncture going into Eau Rouge, or a tyre going flat, which caused him to crash, which then led to the chain of events.

"We've now got a mandatory TPMS [tyre pressure monitoring system], which then warns race control and warns the teams, so we can tell the driver instantly if they've got a puncture.

"If you haven't got the back-up electronics systems, which is a whole network round the circuit effectively to get the signal, then you can't use it, and I think the FIA would be very loathe to allow the F2 cars to race without it on them now."

Sportscar racing too is on hold. The Carlin-run Dallara LMP2 car (below) driven by Ben Barnicoat, Harry Tincknell and Jack Manchester was pipped to the Asian Le Mans Series title in the early months of 2020, but the ELMS campaign and next month's intended maiden Carlin Le Mans appearance have been pushed back.

"We'd have been embarking on our first 24-hour test in preparation for our first Le Mans, so that's all on hold," says Carlin, "which is quite frustrating because it'd be great to be doing that sort of testing now to learn as much as possible, because the team need to learn about a 24-hour race and how to go about it.

"Now it's been pushed back and we'll have plenty of time to prepare. We're looking forward to it. The car was ready to go, so the minute we get a green light we'll be on track and we'll start preparing for the season."

Over in the States, the IndyCar season is slated to get under way at Texas Motor Speedway in early June, but all eyes will be on the success or otherwise of NASCAR's attempt to resume racing this month.

"IndyCar are trying to be as absolutely positive as possible about it, but without being reckless," says Carlin.

"Texas is feasibly an event that could be done behind closed doors, because it's an oval and they could limit the amount of people to the crew and have a standalone event. They're trying to keep everyone's interest up as much as possible and make sure we're all ready to go the minute we can, but no one can tell when we're going to be racing.

"Each country's at a different stage of this catastrophe, and the one thing about the UK is once the UK is deemed to be fit, then all the events are in the UK - with F4 and F3, there's no border crossing.

"With the States it's a massive continent, and New York could be clear and it could still be a problem in Texas. So they've got to get the whole country clear probably before they can start sports, I would say."

In the meantime, Carlin has a full-time UK staff of 70, and US headcount of 26, plus sub-contractors all itching to go racing.

The onus on teams - big and small - is to keep the people they have, on the premise that the whole of a successful operation is always greater than the sum of its parts.

"We're going to have to take advantage of whatever government schemes are out there to help keep businesses intact, and try and keep the whole thing together," states Carlin.

"At the end of the day we are a team, a bunch of people who've been built together over 20 years. We function as a unit. We're not disparate people. We can't close down tomorrow and then in three months' time employ another hundred people - it would be impossible. It's absolutely crucial that we keep this team together."

And Carlin reckons it's the same principle for the smaller teams - just as his operation was for the first several years of its existence.

"The minute we get going, we're just going to be flat-out. I hope they're cutting their grass and painting their fences now, because once we start going they're not going to get weekends off until Christmas!" Trevor Carlin

"You know what, I think the worries are pretty much the same. If you've got eight, nine or 10 blokes you know them all absolutely personally and you feel responsible for them, says Carlin. "But you need less money to keep them all together, whereas we've got slightly bigger resource, we've got slightly bigger customers, so we've got a lot of people here.

"We run a very lean business, we run a lot of racing cars, and effectively there's five people out of that hundred [staff] that don't go racing. Everybody else goes trackside, so I need every one of those people. The minute we get going, we're just going to be flat-out. I hope they're cutting their grass and painting their fences now, because once we start going they're not going to get weekends off until Christmas!"

For a man who once, in his team's smaller days, described himself and his colleagues as "a bunch of anoraks - when we're not racing we're watching it on TV", that could be a little slice of heaven after the lockdown. But every silver lining has a cloud...

"What some championships have tended to do in the past is try and avoid clashing with F1, but I don't think anyone will be giving a monkey's now - they'll just be getting themselves sorted and dealing with this year as it comes," predicts Carlin. "There'll just be a load of motor racing on TV at the same time, which'll be no good to us because we'll be at the circuit!"