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Performing Under Pressure: Sporting DirectorSporting Directors are the ringmasters of a trackside operation. When are they under pressure? When are they not…

TherearefewjobswithintheF1paddockasmisunderstoodontheoutsideasthatofTeamManager.Becauseofthewayinwhichothersportsusetheterm‘manager’,it’softenthecasethattheteammanagerisconfusedwiththeteamprincipal.InF1they’reverydifferent,thoughbothareseniorpositionsandamongthefewnotarisedontheofficialentry.

In practical terms, the team manager runs the trackside operation. They’re responsible for travel plans and car build, for personnel and logistics. In most teams they’ll be the ones responsible for pit-stops and understanding the sporting regs back-to-front. Every team organises the role slightly differently, and there’s a proliferation of titles. The FIA still uses team manager, but for us, it’s sporting director Jonathan Wheatley.

Jonathan Wheatley© Getty Images

While some team managers are pulled in from outside, the usual path is through the garage ranks. In Jonathan’s case that was a decade and a half with the Benetton/Renault team, rising to the position of Chief Mechanic, before joining us in 2006 in the job he still holds today. You’ll know the face: he’s seated at the extreme left of the pit stand, and the voice: he’s the one talking to race control or quarterbacking a frantic last minute repair taking place out on the grid. He tends to be very, very calm…

“It’s a veneer,” he says. “I try to not ever raise my voice because rarely does it do any good – but if there’s a whole load of things building up, then I can be short with people! I think I’m pretty good under pressure. I’ve been in F1 for a long time, been in most situations, and thought about them a lot. Usually, I’m working through scenarios of what might go wrong so when it does go wrong, it might sound like I'm being clever or calm in the moment – but actually it’s just the hours and hours of thought that’s gone on in the background… or maybe I’m just a sociopath!”

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For Jonathan, Sunday is F1 at its most intense. “That’s usually the pressure point. Once everyone’s arrived, all the kit’s here, nothing’s late and the cars are built, then probably it’s race day. It’s made easier by the group of tremendously talented people working here but it can be quite intense, even when it looks smooth. Monaco, a few weeks back, is a good example. I’m sure from the outside it looked like Max strapped the Inters on and disappeared into the distance – but on the pit wall, that one was probably as intense as it gets: lots that can go wrong; constantly looking behind and trying to second guess your opponents. That takes a lot of focus.

Jonathan’s seat on the extreme left of the pit stand isn’t arbitrary: at most races it’s the seat that gives him the best view of the cars trundling down the pit lane towards the box. As a young mechanic at Benetton he was part of a crew that set (unofficial) pit stop records in the early 1990s. He’s taken that forward for us, setting a string of World Records and winning the fastest pitstop award for the last five seasons. Pitstops are, he says, not something to get overly-excited about.

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“I’ve been on the pit wall here at Oracle Red Bull Racing for the last 17 years and every time something goes wrong in a pit-stop it’s a massively public event that people remember – but you learn from those, you rebuild and you get stronger. I don’t have my heart in my mouth every pit stop now – I understand there’s 22 people in that stop, they’re all trying their absolute best but things can, and sometimes will, go wrong. The driver can stop in the wrong position, or box without warning. You might make a box call very, very late and have to make a decision whether that is achievable or not. It’s all part of the adrenaline buzz of F1 – but I’m quite pragmatic about it now.”

Jonathan’s race doesn’t always end at the chequered flag. After the fact – or really at any point during the weekend, the team might be summoned to the Stewards’ office and it’s Jonathan – sometimes accompanied by a driver or one of the technical staff, who take the long walk up to Race Control.

“What’s that like? If you were ever sent to the headmaster’s office at school, you’ll understand the sensation! We’re lucky in F1: particularly now, it’s a massively professional Stewards’ roster, and there’s a lot of respect. You know when you go in if you have a case or don’t have a case. It doesn’t make me nervous, though sometimes I’ve very concerned about the penalty we might get.”

The Man In Focus© Getty Images

A few of Jonathan’s trips to the Stewards’ have been final day deciders, winning titles with Benetton, Renault and us, and with Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and now Max. They can, he says, induce quite a bit of tension. “It does seem like a lot of them go to the wire but I think I’ve been lucky in the successful years because whichever driver I’m dealing with has usually been leading it. Like the 1994 decider when Michael and Damon Hill collided, back then we were all crouched around a tiny Olivetti monitor, that was pretty intense too! But all of those situations go into the memory bank and help you later.”

Those weekends, Jonathan acknowledges, are the rarities – but he also argues there’s no such thing as a quiet one. “That’s just not how F1 operates! We’ve got between 110 and 160 people trackside if you include the Energy Station staff; there’s 40,000kg of freight making its way around the world; people on planes trying to get here from many different countries; you’ve got puncture, traffic jams, air traffic control, and when all of that’s done, there’s always something going on at the track to keep you absolutely on your toes. And this is why, after 33 years in the sport, I’m still as excited about every single weekend as much as I ever was.”