In Formula 1, every person on a team plays a crucial role in keeping the car in top shape. For the Haas F1 team, Gary Gannon takes on the role of racing engineer for Mick Schumacher. Gannon’s job involves setting up, operating and analyzing cars for testing and racing weekends.
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He was previously Romain Grosjean’s race engineer and is now part of Schumacher’s team. Gannon often communicates with his drivers over the radio during the sessions and the race. Based on feedback, analyzes and simulations from the driver, it helps to make decisions about the vehicle setup. Gary Gannon then manages all the systems and analyzes lap times, traffic, runs and possible problems.
He started his career at Honda in the CART series. In 2010 he moved to the UK to work for the newly formed Virgin / Marussia team. After the team folded, he heard through the grapevine that a position was available with the Haas F1 Team. As a bonus, this was an American F1 team, so a colleague helped him get in touch with Günther Steiner.
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How was life at Haas F1 for Gannon?
The race engineer officially joined the outfit in 2015, in its “setup” year. At the time, he was working with a small group to build the core elements of the team ahead of their 2016 debut season. Five years on, the outfit is still going strong, despite having a brand new driver line-up.
Formula 1 F1 – Emilia Romagna Grand Prix – Autodromo Enzo and Dino Ferrari, Imola, Italy – April 17, 2021 Haas’ Mick Schumacher in action during qualifying REUTERS / Jennifer Lorenzini
He admitted that everyone worked hard on the race weekend. This is especially true for qualifying as it is considered the most stressful practice session of the weekend. To that end, all of your efforts will be worth it if things only click. However, Gannon confessed that being away from home for several months each year is still difficult.
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“We have 60 operational racing team employees (the maximum that is required by law) who are away from home approximately 180 days a year, all for 30 hours of total racing time for our two cars throughout the season.
“Fortunately we have a curfew on the racetrack on Thursday and Friday evenings and we can’t do a lot of work on the car after qualifying, otherwise we would work all night!”
Now Gary Gannon will accompany his Haas F1 station Mick Schumacher to Monaco this weekend. This is Schumacher’s first time on the road circuit in F1 machines and there is a lot of pressure on him to perform well for the team.
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