Why WRC mechanics deserve more respect

Wherever you are in the world, a group of mechanics accompanies every race or rally car. Without them, motorsport simply cannot function. While the drivers are thrust into the spotlight, it’s these hardy spanner-wielding souls, often the first to arrive and the last to leave, who build, maintain and repair the machines that allow drivers to succeed across all disciplines.

When it comes to those who work out of a toolbox for a living, World Rally Championship mechanics are regarded among the elite. Their Formula 1 counterparts are required to perform blink-and-you-miss-it pitstops and sometimes huge rebuilds, but those who work in the WRC are a different breed.

These unsung heroes work frighteningly long hours, and are expected to perform against the clock in services, often performing miracles at speed since driver crews must reach time-control checkpoints neither late nor early. For example, a gearbox change is a job that can be completed in just 10 minutes, while a car can be fully serviced in 15.

To better understand how these mechanics operate, M-Sport Ford invited Autosport to be thrown into the deep end by joining the team to work on its brand new £750,000 WRC Ford Puma Rally1 at the South Belgian Rally. While this was a smaller national event – part of the Belgian Rally Championship – it was taken just as seriously as a WRC round. The reason for this was that M-Sport had dispatched a crew of 12 and one Puma to offer new WRC signing Pierre-Louis Loubet a first outing in the hybrid beast, before his first of seven WRC rounds, beginning on Rally Croatia next month.

“It’s really important as this is the event that will help build my confidence for the rest of the season, so the main goal is to reach the event finish, and if we can show a good pace that would be great,” smiles Loubet upon his arrival to the service park.

“Although it’s only a clubman-style rally, we wouldn’t treat it any different,” adds M-Sport’s senior technician of 22 years, Garry Barker. “We are here to do a job and to do it to the same level as if it were a WRC event.”

Garry Barker (right, with Bernardo Fernandes), says clubman-style events are treated the same as WRC rounds

Photo by: M-Sport

So, no pressure then for someone whose only previous spanner work has been reserved for Scalextric cars…
Before any work can be carried out on a Rally1 car, mechanics are required to undertake a health and safety course to understand the potential dangers of hybrid-powered vehicles. New for 2022, Rally1 machines are equipped with a 100kW hybrid kit that combines with a 1.6-litre turbocharged internal combustion engine to produce 500bhp in short bursts.

Team personnel must keep an eye on a system of coloured lights and cones to determine whether the car is safe to work on. When a green light or cone placed on the roof of the car appears, then you’re good to go. But if a red light appears on the windscreen or side window, then there’s a danger that 750 volts could end up coursing through your body. A sobering thought.

“The human threshold for current is something around 20 to 30 milliamps, and this will output hundreds of milliamps of current – it is not to be messed with,” M-Sport’s on-site e-safety engineer Michael Le Monnier tells us. “It’s no more dangerous than working on any other car, as long as you know the risks associated with it.”

Autosport is tasked with a relatively easy first job – fitting the bonnet and boot catches on the Puma. Suffice to say, a first attempt at pop-riveting is perhaps not this writer’s finest hour

Fully briefed on hybrid safety, and following a 6am breakfast, we arrive at a rural Belgian street that will be turned into a rally service park in a matter of hours. The car is rolled out of the truck while the crew build up base camp, which consists of a large inflatable tent to house the car. Tools, wheels, jacks, wheel stands and an impressive arsenal of spares, from bumpers to washers, are housed in the truck, which mirrors a mobile Halfords store.

Once set up, it’s time to prep the car. Autosport is tasked with a relatively easy first job – fitting the bonnet and boot catches on the Puma. Suffice to say, a first attempt at pop-riveting is perhaps not this writer’s finest hour, requiring one of the professionals to fix my handiwork on one of the bonnet catches.

This schoolboy error offers a first glimpse of the teamwork, camaraderie or “good craic”, as one of the mechanics labels it. Everyone helps each other out. There’s also a healthy level of mickey-taking among the crew, but it’s all said in jest and can be valuable when times are tough.

“We keep each other going by taking the mick out of each other,” says Charley Shuttleworth, who is one of the team’s newest recruits. “You sometimes get tired and get a bit arsey with each other, but it’s all part of it. You get to see the world and wear the fancy overalls, so it’s all worth it.”

Howard gets to work, and discovers there's a lot of technique to learn

Photo by: M-Sport

“It’s all good craic,” adds gearbox technician Charlie Reynolds. “If something goes wrong you have to be there and pick up the slack and get the thing sorted.”

As Reynolds has hinted, fatigue is a genuine issue. At some events, the crew is forced to work around the clock, operating on little sleep. Even the team’s breakthrough victory on the Monte Carlo Rally in January with Sebastien Loeb and Isabelle Galmiche was not a walk in the park.

“In Monte Carlo, the first service on the first day we obviously had a few issues and problem solving, but it meant we delayed the start of the car’s service for as long as we could before we had to have them checking in to parc ferme,” says Barker. “But that meant the time in bed that evening was an hour and a half before being back up for a long day.

“Before we went to Monte Carlo we turned up with four new cars and we worked over 80 hours the week before to get the cars to the startline. It’s a big achievement as a team, and we don’t have a lot of people, so it was quite special to win.”

Now we’ve recovered from the bonnet-catch setback, it’s time to slide under the car for the first time to help fit the front sump guard. It’s when you face the underside of the car – this is the machine piloted to a stage win and fifth place on the Monte by Gus Greensmith – that you see the level of detail involved in designing a WRC machine. It’s engineered to be quick on the stages, but also for efficiency when changing and assembling components.

“We do try to take into account the fact that we’re going to change a gearbox and front arms, suspension components, so there is a bit of emphasis on that when we design a car from the mechanic’s point of view, to try and make it effective in all areas,” explains Barker. “It’s great to be fast on the stages, but if you’re losing time in servicing then it can counteract what you are trying to achieve. Everything is made to be changeable.”

The fastening of every bolt is then checked with a torque wrench before the wheels are fitted, the windscreen and bodywork are cleaned, and then Loubet is sent on his way for a couple of shakedown runs on the road around the village of Vresse-sur-Semois. In between the runs, the crew leaps into action to perform a quick service before the car heads out again.

Everybody in the M-Sport team knows their role and executes it efficiently when Loubet arrives for service

Photo by: Tom Howard

Loubet is suitably impressed with the Puma, which is music to the ears of the crew.

“It was an amazing feeling this morning and I have been waiting for this for a long time now,” he says. “I was very impressed with the car as the feeling has come very early.”

And as for Autosport’s small input, he adds with a smile: “You have been great for the moment, so continue like that, but if we have an issue I will come back to you.”

Information on Loubet’s progress filters through the engineers. It’s this important communication channel that can give the crew a heads-up as to what work may need to be carried out at the first service

Unusually, this rally’s shakedown comes before its recce day, meaning Friday is spent prepping the car while Loubet and co-driver Vincent Landais run through the four stages that are to be repeated four times on Saturday to make up the 150km of competitive mileage. This provides a chance to oversee the myriad tasks being carried out on the car, and an opportunity to attempt changing a wheel armed with an airgun. After a lengthy process (compared to the professionals) a new left-rear is successfully fitted, but it’s safe to say we won’t be joining a WRC team any time soon.

After another 6am breakfast, it’s back to the service park for the start of the rally proper. The car is warmed up and final checks are undertaken. The familiar torque wrench is back, checking that all 20 bolts are safe, one mechanic on each corner of the car undertaking the duty.

The car is fitted with a fresh set of boots and Loubet is away. For the mechanics, it’s now a case of waiting for the car to return, and being ready to perform any fix or change required. Information on Loubet’s progress filters through the engineers. It’s this important communication channel that can give the crew a heads-up as to what work may need to be carried out at the first service.

Around mid-morning, the distinctive noise of the Rally1 Puma can be heard as Loubet pulls into the M-Sport tent, and a swarm of people surrounds the car as they get to work. It’s here where the incredible teamwork and seamless interaction between each of the crew members comes to the fore, the mechanics carrying out their routine like a rehearsed set piece on a football training ground.

Loubet used the event to prepare for next week's Rally Croatia

Photo by: M-Sport

In a matter of moments the car is jacked up, stands are in, wheels are removed, and front, middle and rear guards are off as checks are carried out. In this service, your writer is charged with helping check the pre-loads on the front and rear differentials with one of the mechanics. This requires a bespoke tool being placed over the wheel pegs, while on the other side another mechanic monitors pre-load with a similar component that offers up a reader to determine how difficult it is for the wheels to turn independently while no power or braking is being applied.

While it’s mindblowing how calmly and smoothly the process unfolds, with not a moment of panic, this is something that has been rehearsed countless times.

“We’ve done it God knows how many times at the workshop, so when you can come out here and do it really quickly it looks quite impressive,” says Shuttleworth.

Two services later in the unseasonal Belgian heat and the rally is over, with the most significant work being a damper change that takes all of five minutes. Although not officially competing, Loubet ends up fastest across the event, leaving the Frenchman suitably comfortable and confident in the car ahead of Rally Croatia.

This has given us a glimpse into the life of a WRC mechanic, leaving no doubt that these talented specialists deserve the utmost respect. So will Autosport’s services be requested again? Probably not…

“You can do the writing, I can do the mechanic work,” concludes Barker. “Everybody has got their own forte in life, shall we say?”

Howard (third from right) joins the professionals for a team photo. But he'll stick to writing...

Photo by: M-Sport

Raising the Ti-tanak – the ultimate repair job

M-Sport’s mechanics proved what can be possible by completing a miraculous repair that has gone down in World Rally Championship folklore. It was coined the ‘miracle of Mexico’ and lit up social media as ‘raising the Ti-tanak’ when the crew achieved the unthinkable in 2015 by repairing Ott Tanak’s Ford Fiesta – after it had spent 10 hours at the bottom of a lake.

Tanak and co-driver Raigo Molder, carrying damaged front suspension, had careered off the side of a steep downhill gravel road running adjacent to a lake. The car subsequently rolled down the embankment before plunging into the water. Tanak and Molder, pacenotes book in hand, managed to free themselves from the cockpit and swam to safety.

The unharmed yet bedraggled Estonians thought their rally was over as they watched their Fiesta sink. But M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson had other ideas. He decided not only to recover the car using trained divers, but to attempt to drain it of water and repair it for Tanak to return to action the following day.

“We knew there had been an accident, but then when the next car got to the finish line and they were asked if they had seen him [Tanak] they said no,” recounts Gary Barker, a senior technician who worked on the repair.

"We had a bit of a base plan as to what we would need to do, but that changed as we found other problems. The fuel tank was full of water, so we had to change the fuel tank – that wasn’t in the plan" Gary Barker

“The helicopter went out and they couldn’t see it. It was probably a very short period of time, but it felt like a lifetime before we knew the car had gone into the lake and that the driver and co-driver were out of the car and OK.

“Obviously, we thought, ‘Well, that’s it’, then, ‘Will we even see the car again?’ We never thought we would even attempt to try and repair it. As the day went on they sent the divers in to get the car. Eventually after eight or 10 hours it got recovered.

“We got the car in the bay and on stands and we set off to work. We had a bit of a base plan as to what we would need to do, but that changed as we found other problems. The fuel tank was full of water, so we had to change the fuel tank – that wasn’t in the plan.

Tanak's lake visit on the 2015 Rally Mexico was the starting point of an epic WRC repair job

Photo by: Colin McMaster / Motorsport Images

“We had three hours, but we had a semi-stripped car because there was no interior left, there was no cooling package on the front as we had taken all the charge system off and the turbo, so basically there was the remnants of an engine in the shell, and that was it.

“There was a bit of anticipation and thoughts of, ‘Is it going to go?’ [once it was all put back together]. It went on the first chime, so the hairs on the back of the neck went up. There have been some big repairs, but to bring something back from 10 hours at the bottom of a lake is definitely up there as an achievement.”

Tanak and Molder, armed with pacenotes that had been dried out in a hotel room, reached the rally finish, jumping out of their car wearing snorkels to make light of the experience they had been through. The car went on to finish fourth next time out on Rally Argentina.

Tanak restarted the rally and reached the finish, showing his sense of humour by wearing a snorkel

Photo by: Colin McMaster / Motorsport Images