Part of Honda staff has been 'stuck' in Italy for six weeks

AlphaTauri is facing some logistical problems of quite a magnitude before the start of the new Formula One season. It has to deal with employees of Japan's Honda, the wind tunnel is in the UK and while that is not normally a problem during preparation, the coronavirus and Brexit have made everything a lot more difficult.

Some of the Honda staff have been staying in Milton Keynes for a long time because travel to Honda is difficult due to entry restrictions. These employees can therefore easily support Red Bull Racing, but for AlphaTauri (based in Faenza, Italy) it is a lot more difficult.

Honda men in Italy

The situation of COVID-19 is quite alarming in Britain and there are strict measures in Italy too. The men from Honda can therefore not just go back and forth, as is usually the case. Some of the staff have therefore already been in Italy for six weeks.

"The poor guys came here around 11 January and they will stay here until after the test of 23-25 February in Imola. So for them that has had a huge impact," says Graham Watson. "I know that Tanabe-san at Honda was a little bit nervous about asking his people."

The AlphaTauri sporting director also has to contend with the fact that the wind tunnel is in Bicester. Normally some of the Italian engineers travel back and forth from Faenza to Britain quite often, but that's not possible now either. "When they come back to Italy, it's a 14-day mandatory quarantine. So you can actually tie someone up for three weeks, or more, providing they're negative," he said. Valuable time is then lost.

Long delays

In order to test in the wind tunnel at all, parts of the car always have to be transported to the Red Bull Technology centre. "They predominantly go by road, as they are pretty big shipments. Brexit has had quite a big effect on that, more so than COVID I would say. And we've had to build a bit of contingency into the planning," Watson told Motorsport.com.

Especially the ports, according to AlphaTauri, are the problem. The coronavirus has slowed everything down, causing delays of between 24 and 48 hours. The accompanying Brexit transition means much more paperwork and higher costs.