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Plan for 'virtual garages' receives backlash from teams

11:22, 27 Jun 2018

byJake Williams-Smith

Plans from Liberty Media to ban teams' 'mission control' rooms at their factories has received further backlash after Force India stated they would be against such a change. The plan is aimed at making racing less predictable and to further cut costs for teams.

Asked by RaceFans at the French Grand Prix on the matter, Force India chief operating officer Otmar Szafnuer branded the idea "ridiculous".

“Here’s the thing: What cost? We have the virtual garage already and so does everyone else.

“So what cost? That cost is sunk. Getting rid of it is only going to cost everyone. We already have it.”

Teams use their factory over a race weekend as a way of circumventing restrictions on both the number of personnel allowed at the circuits as well as the number of hours allowed to work on the cars.

Force India's technical director Andrew Green did not attend the French Grand Prix however he was present at the teams base of operations in Silverstone.

“The people that we employ for that virtual garage are people that we already employ.

“Andrew Green is the technical director. (He) isn’t employed to sit in the virtual garage, he’s employed as a technical director." Szafnuer added.

“But when he doesn’t travel he’s there. It’s just the opposite. We run two strategists, one per car.

"One of them doesn’t travel, he’s in the virtual garage. Now if they get rid of that we’ll have them travel. It costs you more.

“We have sponsorship for it. We’d lose that too. So then you’ve got to ask yourself if there is no cost benefit for getting rid of the virtual garage are they asking us to get rid of it because we compete with them on sponsorship?”