You’ve heard the phrase mentioned in Formula 1, but what is the “summer shutdown” and what actually does it mean?
The relentless nature of Formula 1, especially in this record-breaking season with 24 races running from February to December, means that this year’s summer shutdown will be a welcome one for drivers and their respective teams.
It is an important break that is written into the 2024 FIA F1 sporting regulations. Article 24.1 says that “competitors must observe a shutdown “period of 14 consecutive days during the months of July and/or August”.
As it is in the rules, any team found breaking the shutdown rules risks a penalty from the FIA.
The rules are simple. During the two-week break, teams cannot carry out any work related to the performance of their cars. That means any design, research, wind tunnel time or even making a phone call or sending an email about the performance of the car is prohibited.
However, as Mercedes Chief Operating Officer Rob Thomas explains, there is still work to be done.
“Around 95% of the people are hopefully on the beach,” he tells Autosport, “but a lot does go on and people don’t really realise it.
“There is a lot of planning that goes on in the run-up to these precious two weeks. It’s the only time where you can get to things that you can’t normally get to, because we’re so flat out all the time.
Maintenance work can be carried out by external contractors while regular staff are on their enforced leave
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
“It sounds obvious, but it is a time where you give everything a good going over, rather like servicing your car. It means that you can take the power down for a day and it will not disturb operations.
“Our shutdown starts at 6am on Saturday morning and when the last person leaves the site, an army of contractors will descend on the place.
“They will try to clean up as much as they can. In the machine shop, each machine will be serviced.
“We’re actually taking four machines out and bringing four new machines in, which is a pretty massive piece of work to do that. And then you’ve got all of the services around it.
“So things from the air conditioning systems to lighting to your heating, that all gets its annual service.
“Anything that needs repairing will get repaired and we’ll even paint the floors so when people walk in again in two weeks’ time they go ‘gosh, it’s changed a lot. It looks really nice’.”
It is up to the FIA to…
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