29 Tonnes, 65 People, and 3 Cars
25.2.01

This year, the first three rounds of the Formula 1 World Championship are all outside Europe, with the Australian race followed by those in Malaysia (18th March) and Brazil (1st April.)

This means teams have to get all their equipment together for three races and the cars and spares which will be on site in Melbourne, will then be forwarded on to Sepang and Sao Paulo, without returning to base.

The first Ferrari man to touch down in Melbourne is logistics specialist Miodrag Kotur, who arrived in Melbourne this morning. All the equipment left Maranello on Friday, while the three F2001 (chassis nos. 206, 208 and 209) were put on a cargo charter from Malpensa International Airport, along with those of the Minardi and Sauber teams.

Of the three F2001 chassis 208 is for Michael Schumacher, 209 for Rubens Barrichello and 206 is the spare car. 209 has not yet turned a wheel, but between them, the other two have racked up 4179.061 kilometres. 206 has run both at Fiorano (only with Michael Schumacher) and at Mugello (also with Rubens Barrichello) covering 2595.071 kms. The version of the F2001, the one Schumacher will race in Melbourne and the second to emerge from Maranello has covered 1583.990 kilometres. The world champion has done the most running in the new car: Schumacher has covered 2479.681 kms compared with 1699.380 for team-mate Barrichello

Today sees the departure of most of the 65 members of the race team, while the remaining engineers will fly out from Italy on Monday. A trip as long as this, in terms of distance and time, involves shipping a large amount of equipment. No less than 110 packing cases weighing around 29 tonnes have left Maranello over the last few days. This year a special effort has been made to improve working conditions in the garages. Two containers have been freighted out with equipment which will allow the team to reproduce the same working environment usually found on the team trucks which follow the European races.

There will be no food supplies among the 29 tonnes as strict Australian customs laws forbid the importing of foodstuffs. But thanks to the collaboration of a large group of Italo-Australians in Melbourne, there will still be plenty of pasta and parmesan on the kitchen table in the Ferrari garage.

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