In the Slipstream

What’s behind every great F1 driver besides a bevy of podium girls, a screaming V10 engine, and enough carbon fiber to whet any rice boy’s Fast and Furious fantasies? The wife? Yes, but what else? A big racing budget? Uh huh. The test driver? Gotcha.

Back before he got to be the guy who puts in the hours and hours of testing and tuning for the Mild 7 superstars of Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso, Allan McNish cut his teeth with teams such as Toyota, Audi, Porsche and McLaren. While most kids his age were just racing on Nintendo, he was already a respected karter in the international circuit. Working his way up to Formula 3 and F3000, he proved to be a fast and durable driver through consistent performances in the Le Mans and Daytona 24-hour races of 1999 and 2000.

And just last weekend, the Scot was in country as part of Mild Seven’s annual Formula One bash. Two years ago, the tobacco company brought us the "Mild Seven F1 SPEEDshow" which introduced local F1 fans to the R201 race car. Last year they had "Mild Seven XLR8: The Mild Seven F1 Experience", which brought in the R202 race car driver and certified chick-killer Jenson Button. This year, in what’s becoming a quite impressive effort to educate us crazy Filipino drivers on the complete story behind an F1 team, they brought in McNish and the R23 race car.

While the stars get all the front page treatment, the champagne baths, and editorial gossip, guys like Allan do the dirty work. Weeks before a Grand Prix, he flies to the country where the race will be held to scout the track. Observations on track and weather conditions and how the car performs under varying loads at that venue will allow the official drivers to shave off valuable seconds in running time. Speed gains during off-season testing and race car development are part of the team’s performance cycle. Months of engineering preparations, millions of computer simulations (not games, mind you), and miles upon miles of test driving (sometimes exciting, sometimes boring) are invested into every race. Sort of like how we do our test drives. Not.

Besides testing the car in their home country, McNish travels with the team to all 16 different race tracks in Asia, America, Europe and Australia where the Grands Prix are held.

"The fact that you are getting quicker almost on a daily basis improves the morale of the whole team, and pushes them to do even better. It is absolutely vital. From the mechanics to the drivers, the will to give 100 percent can work miracles because when a driver feels confident, that can be worth tenths of a second too," McNish says.

Fruit of the team’s efforts could be seen in the Mild Seven Renault R23 F1 car. Capable of speeds in excess of 320 kph, the V10 engine of the car takes two weeks to assemble, a collaboration of 150 suppliers, and 5,000 different components of which 1,500 are moving parts. Obviously not something to tinker with in one’s garage.

A normal working day at the office for the Mild Seven team will have the motor revving past 18,000 rpm and operating at over 110 degrees Centigrade. Surface temperature can heat it close to 300. For the exotic materials geeks, know that 85 percent of the body is made from carbon fiber while 20 different metal alloys are used in building the car. Just to dizzy you with more numbers, it produces 150 sparks and completes 300 piston cycles in just one second. So how long does an average race take? To make sure that the car finishes the race strong is the never-ending job of Allan and the development team.

"We take seriously our role as the premier educators of Formula 1 in the Philippines. This is why Mild Seven has brought in not only a reputable driver like Allan but also an authentic F1 race car as well," said Edward Cruz, Brand Marketing Manager of JT International (Philippines), Inc., the makers, importers and distributors of Mild Seven.

"This is our way of showing racing aficionados the complete picture of racing. Allan is thoroughly involved in development, testing, and all elaborate preparations before every single race. The product of these efforts is an intimate knowledge of all the race courses in the world and the fine-tuning of the R23 race car," he adds.

And for the test driver who did get a good amount of appreciation from the Slipstream crowds, McNish admitted that it’s better for him to be an integral part of a top-flight team than be at the back of a grid in an non-competitive car.

McNish was also on hand as Mild Seven officials gave away six out of eight all-expense paid trips to the 2004 Malaysian Grand Prix, the grand prizes for the F1 Slipstream raffle promo. The two other grand prize winners will be drawn at the Mandaue Cultural and Sports Complex in Cebu on November 22. Event partners for Slipstream were Philippine Airlines, Epson, PowerKarts, Asia Brewery and Pier 1.