Team Sizes

Ruslan

Podium Finisher
A couple of articles caught my attention today. One in which Cyril Abiteboul say that Renault has just 1200 employees, whereas Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull each have 1600. Another article has Szafnauer (Racing Point) saying they now have 425 people (up from 400) and by the end of the season they hope to have 475.

So:
Mercedes = 1600
Ferrari = 1600
Red Bull = 1600
Renault = 1200
McLaren = ?
Toro Rosso = ?
Racing Point = 425
Alfa = ?
Williams = ?
Haas = ?

I gather that adds up to something like 8,000 to 10,000 people so 20 people can race.



The articles are here:

GPGuide | News - Renault to 'talk to McLaren about B team alliance

GPGuide | News - Racing Point becoming 'normal team' - Green
 
What is known, FiA Sporting Regulations 2019 limits personnel for track-side operations (Article 21.6) - about 60 personnel.
From the start of the Event until two hours after the start of the race no competitor may have more than a total of 60 team personnel who are associated in any way with the operation of the cars within the confines of the circuit. However, during the period starting 45 minutes before the start of the first formation lap until 15 minutes after the scheduled start of the race the number of such operational personnel is unlimited. For the avoidance of doubt staff whose duties are solely connected with hospitality, team motorhomes, sponsors, marketing, public relations, security or driving trucks to or from the Event are not considered operational personnel.

In addition to the 60 personnel described above each competitor will be allowed six individual exceptions during a Championship season for trainee personnel, however, no individual trainee may attend more than two Events in this capacity.
 
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Someone on the internet introduced himself as "currently working in F1" and stated, that in 2017 Williams had about 500 employees working on F1 related activities. The same person assesed Mercedes (chassis only) employes 600 personnel, and at engine plant another 600.

I would not put too much trust into those figures, since there could be some significant indirect and unaccounted manpower involved.

Then there are suppliers...most likely hundreds, if not thousands of people.
 
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So in this case, the 'Bigger is Better' ? ;)
Not really. There is no direct correlation between head count in the offices and Newey's brain. High demand on reliability and every aspect of racing requires a lot of analyses, empirical investigations in short time rate of development demands, so, work is divided among focus teams, and there is lot of them. Take a road car as an example. One carmaker I know of employs one team consisting of Ph.D. in acoustics and one Dipl. Ing. (equiv. to Masters) just on investigation of sounds car makes, and what pleases customers. Door closure, sounds of switches, exhaust, etc. Life is complicated, and there is lot to know.

On lighter note: - nice to know - internet
Formula One cars don’t have air bags which normal road cars have but the cockpit walls can withstand impacts equivalent to 250 tonnes i.e the weight of 58 African Elephants.
 
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So in this case, the 'Bigger is Better' ? ;)
I am unable to locate that information right now, but I've read, that current F1 car is comprised of about 800000 parts (or thereabout). Imagine how much human effort that requires to determine need, research in function, form, and everything else at high performance environment.

Telling teams to cut down labor is a moronic (IMHO) idea. Regulation would have to change for less complicated product, and labor would somewhat adjust downwards accordingly. People do not work on one engine. They have many of them in different stages of development as replacements. There is lot of activities at works.
 
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A couple of articles caught my attention today. One in which Cyril Abiteboul say that Renault has just 1200 employees, whereas Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull each have 1600. Another article has Szafnauer (Racing Point) saying they now have 425 people (up from 400) and by the end of the season they hope to have 475.

So:
Mercedes = 1600
Ferrari = 1600
Red Bull = 1600
Renault = 1200
McLaren = ?
Toro Rosso = ?
Racing Point = 425
Alfa = ?
Williams = ?
Haas = ?

I gather that adds up to something like 8,000 to 10,000 people so 20 people can race.



The articles are here:

GPGuide | News - Renault to 'talk to McLaren about B team alliance

GPGuide | News - Racing Point becoming 'normal team' - Green
Interesting topic

I think Alfa is also around the 470 mark, I read it somewhere, but alas, can't remember where...old age is catching up with me...
 
No wonder the costs in F1 have gone up so much if they have so many people working for them and it also explains why they won't want the costs cap coming in. Those with smaller teams won't mind so much I'm sure, but those with so many employees would either need to make a few redundant or tell them their wages are going to decrease. I'm guessing neither of them would be welcome news.
 
OK....lets update:

Mercedes = 1600 (source: Abiteboul)
Ferrari = 1600 (Abiteboul)
Red Bull = 1600 (Abiteboul)
Renault = 1200 (Abiteboul)
McLaren = 600 + 600 (Izumi, from some guy on the internet)
Williams = 500 (Izumi, from some guy on the internet)
Toro Rosso = ?
Alfa = 470 (Bradman, from his hazy memory)
Racing Point = 425 (Szafnauer)
Haas = ?

+ suppliers and contractors
 
To certain extend the answer is yes. More resources do support testing functionality of various design variants, production of which often can be performed concurrently, thus fielding of the revised or improved product is quicker (over sequential development). With less resources you have to narrow down your engineering investigation and that of course sometimes carries risk of part failure during a race, or its performance is not up to the target level.
This theory however has its limits because at a saturation point regardless how much more resources you throw at it, your ROI is negligible. There are of course other related issues. There is no point to bring 10 new parts to the track, if you can actually mount and test only say for sake of argument only 3 of them. So, you need strategy, you need sound plan, and you need cohesive team. Ferrari a few years back brought too many parts with them for testing, and they got consequently lost with tonnes of data, which made very little sense to them. The year after that I think they were asked to limit testing to 3 pieces max (if my memory serves).
 
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From the Netflix documentary "Drive To Survive" episode 1, Haas TP Guenther Steiner in 2018 (start of season at Melbourne) was asked by Martin Brundle "how many in the team?". 212 was the answer.
Martin responds with "Mercedes have more people on holiday at any one time"!
 
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