An interview by @JuliaF1interviews_ . She does a great job of interviewing some of the interesting people behind the scenes in the Formula 1 paddock, including photographers, marshals and other performance coaches. There are thousands of people involved in the Formula 1 travelling circus, some who come along to every event, and others who are regulars at their local race. Take a look at some of her other interviews on her instagram page.
Can you introduce yourself? How long have you been doing this job and in F1?
Hi, my name is Paul Walker. I work with the teams in Formula 1 and have a particular speciality in improving pitstop performance. I worked the 2017 and 2018 seasons with Williams and the 2021 and 2022 seasons with Haas.
Can you describe a race weekend?
A race weekend for the guests is really cool. You arrive on a Saturday, maybe Friday if you really love the racing. You enjoy the sessions and the hospitality and you’ll be home in the evening after the race on a Sunday.
A race weekend for the teams is long and hard. Some team members arrive at the track as early as Monday to start setting up the garage. Once the garage is built, they will start building the cars Wednesday and Thursday, 12 hour days minimum. Friday the cars run, so you’re into managing the running of the cars and fixing any issues. There is usually a lot of changes Friday night, to get the car setup for P3 and qualifying on Saturday. Saturday is an easier day as the car goes into parc fermé after qualifying, so no changes can be made. Sunday is a long one. There is the prep for the race, then the race itself, but once that is over and the crowds head home, that’s when the pack-up starts. The cars will need to be stripped for travel and the garage is completely taken down. This is usually 6-8 hours of work after the race is over.
The term “race weekend” can have a slightly different meaning depending on who you talk to.
The hardest thing in this job?
The hardest thing changes all the time. Sometimes, it’s simply the time you spend away from your family. Sometimes, it’s managing all the different relationships you have at the track, when you’re looking after a team of 50 people and effectively living with them year round.
I’ve watched the guys at Haas work a full season in 2021, put in the same hours of work as everyone else, be away from their families just as long, the whole time knowing that there was almost no chance of getting points. A whole season with no reward and no hope. That was hard.
Then you contrast that with the start of the 2022 season, Kevin’s return and getting points in the very first race.
A difficult and brave decision by Guether in 2021 to not develop the car. The resilience of the team members to deal with that gruelling season. Both very hard, but that also led to the best moment with the team.
Which moment do you prefer or is your favourite moment during a race weekend and the opposite the worst moment?
My favourite moment is after the pitstop has been called, the guys collect the wheels and take their place in the pitlane. There’s usually about 8-10 seconds before the car arrives, but for that short period, time seems to slow down. It’s those few, brief, calm seconds before the pitstop where you can appreciate the work that you’ve put in over that week and the months previous.
Then conversely, the worst moment can literally be a few seconds later. The car pulls into the pit box and stops. You can hear the wheel guns not synchronised in their action. You can see something has gone wrong on one corner. The worst part is that short period where you know something has gone wrong, but you don’t know exactly what.
The first thought is “is everyone ok?” The pitstops are inherently dangerous and the last thing you want is someone be hurt. Then my head spins through everything we’ve done that week, whether there were any indicators from practice that something may go wrong on that corner, whether we have had any question marks on equipment, all the other potential issues. That moment of not knowing is the worst.
What do you remember from your experience in F1?
As cool as F1 may seem from the outside, it is still a job. You do the same tasks with the same people each week. You may be in another country, but the inside of a garage in Melbourne can look awfully like the inside of a garage in Imola.
The big moments, the ones that stand out and make it worthwhile are the good performances, like Kevin in Bahrain, or Lance taking a podium in Baku in 2017. But my personal favourite was when the Williams team won the F1 raft race in Montreal in 2018. A bit of friendly competition in the F1 paddock and good outcome for us. I think that was the only thing we won that year.
Can you present your new project?
Whilst having worked in elite sport my whole career often as a coach and manual therapist, I also have a PhD in Engineering. As a consultant, I feel I can make the biggest impact working at the intersection of human performance and technology.
I recently project managed “Swim 62”, a 2 day swimming event where we successfully supported the first person ever to swim around the island of Abu Dhabi. So from F1 to long-distance swimming, who knows what is next.
Quantified Athlete 