The Johnnie Walker Malaysia Pit Crew Experience @ Sepang International F1 Circuit

Recently attended the The Johnnie Walker Malaysia Pit Crew Experience held at Sepang International F1 Circuit where I participated in the afternoon session experiencing the challenge by forming a team with Reshmonu and Dawn Yang along with Noel, Elf and Andy (sorry guys, my notepad with your full names on it was stolen when i got attacked). We were up against a pretty strong team consist of all guys led by Richard.

Here’s some of the people that was there when I dropped by the Paddock area of the SIC. Be warn, loads of images ahead!

Taking a break in front of the car, how I wish I can drive this car home. Donning my fav. cap to get some inspiration from Sir Jackie Stewart as I was elected by Reshmonu as the Team Manager for JW1 GP.

Owen Yap

Henry Golding

Dawn Yang, my Data Engineer. Next time I got some tough mathematical questions need solving, I’m gonna look for you.

Reshmonu, the man I can rely on to making sure the car’s spotless and shiny.

Robbie Kerr, the driver for JW1.

The exhausted Rosyan after a grueling 5 hour battle of the Pit Crew.

The experience was amazing, our journey into the world of Formula 1 Pit Crew begun when we were ushered into a room where the Johnnie Walker Britain’s engineers run us through the various do and don’t that we have to observe as a team and tips on how to run a successful race team which the 6 of us got to be for the day. Our team name? JW1, simple and powerful I must say.

The team going through the notes and understanding what they need to do.

The team was organized into a Team Manager: Michael Yip (Myself ler!), Team Co-Ordinator: Noel, Race Engineer: Andy, Data Engineer: Dawn Yang and Mechanics: Reshmonu and Elf. This is the way we were sorted for the day for the preparation, practice runs, qualifying and race ‘day’.

We had to be sorted out into various positions too for the pit stop as there’s only 6 of us instead of more. So Myself and Dawn was on the lifts (cleverly assigned by me, since I’m the team manager and I’m too lazy to run, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA), Wheel Gunners which is Andy and Elf and Noel and Reshmonu handles the tyre changes.

After we got ourselves fitted with our own headsets and introduced to the garage area and our driver, Mr. Robbie Kerr as well as 2 properly trained professional F1 mechanics (yes, even though they assigned us into teams and our own designations, they still don’t really trust us in running the set-ups ourselves). We got ourselves together where we worked out some of the finer details of how to function more efficiently as a team. We tried to utilize the headset (we were supposed to communicate with each other via the head-set only) to communicate a lot but I also use the trusty pen and paper a lot too!

No one helped us took photos of us in action using my cam so I have to use this as an example. Girl in a race overall is just hot right?

In the 4 hours we were there, we had to make sure the car get it’s base set-up correct, the minimum weight was adhere to, all the tyre pressures are correct (12 at rear and 14 at front), the car was spotless (Reshmonu volunteered to be the Car Care Center of the team and made sure the car was spotless and waxed til the end of it’s life) and the driver was ready to race. Dawn Yang was fantastic as the Data Engineer (boy! glad we had her in our team and appointed her correctly!) as we had all our calculations spot on from the weight, fuel set-up for practice, qualifying and race as well as our timing during the race. Thanks Dawn!

Here’s a break down of what our roles had us do, as the team manager, I had to make sure the team runs properly and we win at all the things we do by planning ahead. I am also the cheerleader of the team as I was the loudest and as talkative on the headset as Reshmonu. The Team Co-Ordinator (Noel) ensured that everyone knows what they are doing, where everyone is and where things go (or that was what I made him do aka abusing my power as the Team Manager). Race Engineer (Andy) was in charge of making sure the driver’s there on time for all the driving bits (or I’ll jump into the car and drive it myself), communicating instructions and set-up preference between drivers and his team of mechanics, on top of that,  I was constantly bugging him on the headsets to the annoyance of everyone asking him to double check and triple check everything and talk to the race driver on ensuring the best set-up was placed to get the winning car we hope to get.

Data Engineer (Dawn Yang) was there to do all the calculation bits (FINE! I didn’t trust the guys when it comes to maths! See! at least I admit it) and boy, I was so glad that I made the right choice. She got all our calculations spot on and was told by the JW Britain engineers that she was very efficient at it too! (We gained points in this part while the other team made a few mathematical errors and lost points there. BWAHAHAHA)

The Mechanics (Reshmonu and Elf) was in-charge of doing the actual set-up of the car with input from the data engineer, race engineer and the drivers, by adjusting the wings and tyre pressures as well as making sure there’s no obstruction to the radiator pots as well as handling the car when we need to get the car weight at the start and in between qualifying and race. I strongly belief we were amazing as a team (and also cause the JWB guys told us also). We rake in points as a team and won the Qualifying Pit-Stop Contest thanks to the efficient communication among the team members.

We got into our race suits prior to the race where we had to put the car through 10 laps to clock the fastest time. I admit that we didn’t win the race and we wasn’t the fastest at the race pit stop but we still managed to beat the other team that was all guys! Roshan Narayan (of Mix.FM) and Richard Augustin with their team gave us a run for our money but a win is a win, and Reshmonu and myself made sure Roshan didn’t forget it (bloody mean of us but it was all for a good laugh).

Thanks guys and the beautiful girl of JW1! You guys made my day!

Thanks to Johnnie Walker Malaysia for the wonderful experience! I’ve posted more photos from the day on my Facebook Album (click!).

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