Hey everyone welcome back to the Trackside podcast. This is episode 3 I'm Jamey Osborne and I'm joined by Jessica Althoff and we are very glad you are here. And Jessica I'm excited to talk about a day in the life of a marshal today and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. How are you doing? I'm doing good thanks. How about you? I am doing alright. Want to thank everybody who has signed up to download our podcast and subscribed and all of that good stuff. We're starting to get the word out now about the trackside podcast and yes we know about the name. And so before we get too far we'll just say yeah we know I am certain that when I looked I didn't see anything so but oh well I'm a fail in that department but in any case until we come up with a better name we're going to call it trackside podcast and when it changes hopefully nothing will change except the title and maybe a graphic or two. But you know stuff happens and away we go. But we do think everybody that has listened to the podcast this far welcome if you are brand new to the podcast. We are focusing on Marshalls, Motorsports Marshalls and we're hopefully recruiting some new ones trying to give you some ideas about how you can get started if you're interested in the idea of Motorsports Marshalling. It's an exciting fun hobby to do. You get up close and personal with some of the race cars some of the times but it's certainly a lot of fun especially if you're a Motorsports fan and if you are then you're in the right place you're listening to the right kind of podcast. So just tell us tell them a little bit about what we're going to talk about today and kind of what we have in store for episode three. Yeah I think we're going to go ahead and go through the day in a life, day in the life rather of an F1 Marshall and maybe a touch on a MotoGP a little bit as well a couple of differences there. But we want to go through the core specialty is for Marshalling, F and C, intervention, PPG, start those are the kind of the four I think we're going to cover today. The different roles kind of what to expect for an F1 type of event which is probably going to be yeah quite quite different than club racing which I think we'll also get to one in the future episode which I'm always happy to talk about because I think as we mentioned on one of the previous episodes they are completely different experiences but equally fulfilling and rewarding and absolutely. You know and a lot of people would probably wonder why are you guys starting with F1 you have to have experience to get to F1 and that's true you really do but understanding kind of what happens at the F1 level will help to explain a lot of the things that you'll see here in experience at a club race or at a smaller event than F1 so that F1 they literally take the time out and explain every step even to the experienced Marshalls and so it seems like there's a lot of repetitive information out there but for new Marshalls it can be like drinking from a fire hose so we kind of wanted to give you the sort of a top down view of how things work at the F1 event for a Marshall so that you can understand what will happen not everything will be as explained or as delineated at a different kind of event but the same things are happening along the way fair enough? Yeah sounds good. So how does the F1 Marshalls day start Jess? Yeah well we're talking about race day like official practice day we're not doing registration we're not going to go into that. We'll assume that they've already registered and gotten in but they're on site and it's still dark outside and... Unless it's my race. Maybe a night race. It might be light outside. Okay if you're if you're an F1 Marshall of Vegas yeah it'll be a little different. Yeah so of course you'll be given a call time ahead of time hopefully by your chief or the racetrower whoever is in charge. Hey you got to be here at this time in the morning let's just say we're going to say that right all day morning. Oh yeah. Well let's just say this is a day a day of time race that we're talking about for all intensive purposes. There you go. So you're going to be given a call time it is typically very early if it's a day I think typically 5 am 5 30 it's not unusual like like Jamie said you know it's usually pretty dark out. So typically you will come to the meeting point whether that be you know a big tent on site at a track or it might be a building of some kind anyway. They'll tell you where you need to meet. Our US I've only ever worked US F1 races so I can only speak to that I can't speak to me the international. I'm really looking forward to getting some guests on in the future to kind of tell us about that. But I know for our events our organizers and promoters have been very generous with giving breakfast out to the marshals coffee all that kind of stuff make sure that they're ready to go. So everybody will gather in the meeting point eat you know a lot of some time to kind of get everything together and then they'll usually be some quick speeches made typically by I think like the flag chief might say a few words of the race chair might say a few words. I haven't been to the Marshall tent in a little while to go to any of the US to see it's a kind of no who gets up and says things but yeah typically they'll be a few things you know you may not have met your chief yet or your captain. So that might be a kind of a way to look for your spot where you need to go and from there typically we will start getting ready to get on the bus to move on to the next stage. What did I miss Jamie? You got the overview pretty well there's the morning meetings for an F1 event are going to be a lot more involved as just said we'll hear from some you know VIPs those folks usually in race control the race chairs just said but also sometimes you live from the communicators. And for F1 least in the Austin F1 the United States Grand Prix they've been very kind enough to send down you know people like the race director will sometimes make an appearance and you know he's an FIA VIP and you know that's always cool when those folks show up to the to the meetings but also you'll hear from you know sometimes some track officials and we've been lucky enough to have even some race teams show up the last two Austin Grand Prix is the Hoss team has sent their team principle two years ago it was Goenture Steiner and last year it was IU I'm sorry I can't remember that gentleman's name but he came I didn't get to see him but they always come and offer best wishes to the marshals and sometimes bring gifts and they're very very generous with pictures and things like that it's really kind of a neat little benefit for marshals to occasionally get that sort of thing too but the morning meeting purpose is to sort of align everybody onto the procedures what's what to expect for the day are there going to be a support series that they're going to have to know about differences and flags at Austin particularly the inevitably go over track limits over and over and over and over again because at the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of America's track limits can always be a thing in fact it sometimes determines the races and determines the podium so they touch about them in the morning meeting now you know sometimes they'll tell you we've got it on camera you don't need to call it as much and you know they'll they'll give you that sort of feedback as the weekend goes on because you have a morning meeting each day so the contents of the morning meeting will obviously vary by day as well but it's a big big an important way to understand sort of the context of your day and usually then at that point the teams will or the the morning meeting will break off into specialties sometimes particularly early in the weekend they'll have a special session for the intervention marshals for example will very frequently go and since their job is to put hands on the cars to retrieve the car with a lot of heavy equipment they have specialized training with their interveners to be able to interact with the high lift marshals so that they know how to properly lift and raise a f1 or support series car onto a flatbed trailer and be able to you know safely and properly extricate driver from a scene for perhaps all the various things that intervention marshals have to do which are entirely separate from the things that the for example TSP marshals who get their own training are looking at now we've not mentioned a TSP marshal before but a TSP marshal are a special kind of flagging marshal they don't even necessarily stay in their own station one of the tricky things about being a TSP marshal is finding where you have to go because your T if you're a TSP marshal you're connected to a TSP light panel those electronic flags that you see so often on the television broadcasts those are all controlled by a TSP marshal and the TSP marshal has to move and find where the control panel is for their light and it's not necessarily where the rest of the marshals are on the corner so it can be kind of tricky for the marshals to find themselves they kind of are in different places and they're not necessarily in the same order it can be a little confusing to be a TSP marshal but it's actually a lot of fun I was a TSP marshal for the 2015 United States Grand Prix and that's the one that everyone knows because it rained so hard. The Dale used that was before my it's heard about it in 2018 when it also had torrential down for yeah no I think that's a good that's kind of a preview of what we're going to get to here in a minute when we talk about the different roles on posts so yeah I think that's a great overview and I think you made a good point to that the morning meeting contents will differ I know like one thing you know usually the first day especially if there's lots of new people we might still kind of be getting used to talking on the radio and stuff like that so you know day two you might hear more about okay make sure you're not saying you know all the time you know or whatever you know something like that make sure your calls are concise you know make sure you're giving a car color like if it were a support series you know for our people to look it up so yeah there might be some minor tweaks to be made with just feedback so yeah I think that's a great point so but yeah I think once we once we hit the meeting then it's on to the on to the school bus or the tram the head out to station so I think this is typically what we're used to right at all the all the events in the United States where you know we everybody piles on to the bus they'll be given you know okay if you're in this sector you're gonna get on this bus so they have multiple shuttles that'll just drop everybody off because you know we can't have everybody parking out on the on the ring roads or wherever right so everybody gets shuttled to to their place and and then that's where we kind of start to get ready for course clearance you want to go into that? Sure so course clearance is something that I think a lot of Marshalls and I'm speaking to you now existing F1 and MotoGP Marshalls the course clearance I think is a misunderstood concept in four Marshalls in the NFA event or FIM event being MotoGP. Speaking from someone who has worked inside the control race control room I have not worked in F1's control room but I do work pretty regularly in MotoGP's I will tell you from that perspective of sitting in race control the most stressful time of our day is course clearance now well actually I'm jumping ahead of myself it's actually track inspection course clearance is a huge thing too now course clearance is the radio call sorry I'm getting ahead of myself oh goodness I almost almost feel like going no no no that's wrong right course clearance is when each of the radio stations each of the Marshall posts in turn radio into race control about their status and different race control communicators will have different sort of phrases that they would like to hear my favorite is the MotoGP clear call their clearance call is they like to hear clear staffed and ready and what that tells them is they'll motor Marshall post one clear staffed and ready and what that tells race control is that track is clear in their sector there's no vehicles or moving around the alternative call would be not clear so if you've got you know maintenance vehicles signage vehicles as frequently happens at at times before we go hot then you would say not clear staffed and ready and it just means all it means is there's a vehicle in my sector but otherwise we're ready to go so clear staffed means we have all of our people and ready means we're ready to go we've done all of our walkthroughs we've had all of our corner post meetings we're ready to go clear staffed and ready I think that's a great way to call in different other stations or other kinds of events may have you call in saying you know corner post 12 we are two on and ready or three on all equipment and ready various little phrases like that and you'll pick up on how different tracks do their course clearances and different controllers say them in different ways yeah definitely and you might find like in club racing or if even a support series if if we're having a any kind of flag condition on the outlapped or the payslap rather they might tell you to say okay are you are you double yellow and ready you know something like that to kind of confirm it's almost kind of like a little mini reminder of make sure you're you got your proper flag condition out for this flag that's about to start so that's a Marshall's favorite question over the radios control what's our flag condition yeah what's our flag condition you'll hear that 15 times over a weekend oh yes definitely so yeah yeah so I think yeah course clearance is just a way to just kind of a roll call really that's really all it is from most part because the next thing is is the I think what you were alluding to is being stressful you want to you want to take you want to take it the track inspection I think is very misunderstood by a lot of Marshalls and you know the Marshalls most of them like it because they actually get to go out on track and you know for an F1 Marshall especially the non intervention Marshalls you don't get to go out on track at all except for when you're dropped off in the morning and when you're picked up in the evening but usually and and under most circumstances you're not on the track at all so a lot of Marshalls love the track inspection because they actually get to stand out on on track and you know it's become famous lately for on race day becoming the time where all the skits are done for the race Marshalls for the race director but the track inspection is a hugely stressful time particularly on the first two days of the event but and particularly for Moto Moto GP at least there's a lot of stress there but the track inspection is a required element of the sporting regulations and the first there's usually two inspections that take place the first is the medical car doing the medical inspection and they're checking the safety teams they're checking the disposition the ambulances how many firemen they have how many medics they may have you know various things on the medical side and you'll see those paramedics and other safety members with their lights on sometimes they're standing out on the track side with you and these are usually what they call toes on the line inspections where all of the marshals at a relevant station except for one who was back waving a flag at the at the Marshall post are actually standing on track to be counted and they are actually conducting account because all of the counts for the marshals are previously agreed upon in the weeks leading up to the race and then they have to actually prove with bodies on the on the line so to speak that they've actually got all the people that they have said that they need to have to safely run the race so it's stressful because if a track fails that inspection it can be a dimirit you know it's bad now is it going to stop the race probably not but is it going to cause a lot of meetings to occur between the the facility and the organizers and the the sanctioning body for the next event you bet it will so it's a very stressful thing in your presence as a marshal on the line when those cars go by is a very big deal so you know next time you're standing out their toes on the line marshals you know understand you're playing a very important role just by standing there and you know making sure that the race team in those cars knows that we are as as we say clear staffed and ready and you know it's a it's a huge deal that track inspection so take it seriously when you're standing out there yeah definitely so yeah as as Jamie mentioned there's of course the medical inspection so that'll be you know most of the the medical staff course but the track inspection they're going to typically have or at least the flaggers usually do something kind of to make sure that they're paying attention so they might say hey I want all stations waving a yellow and holding out your SC board something like that and that is to my really bad analogy it's kind of like the van halen brand new snifter red brown M&M's you know that was their way of making sure that their writer was being read by their promoter like that because they had a stage collapse or whatever it was it's like no this is our way of knowing okay you read that good you read it good we know you did because you provided us this same kind of thing it's just that's their way of knowing okay you are listening you're paying attention this is what we wanted to see and you know sure I think we've all had that experience out there where we look in our neighboring station you know clearly someone's not just have their heads set on and they're not waving their flag or whatever and it's just like oh they're going to hear about that so yeah it's definitely important to always be have have your it's kind of like that course clearance when they give you that call time to pick me the morning meeting K we're doing course clearance here you need to have somebody on that radio at all times because you never know what I mean things can change on a dime you know we might have scheduled changes at the last minute we might have things go over okay we have we had hot laps during this break and now we don't because we went over you know you always want to make sure somebody has always got their ears on they say absolutely yeah but yeah the track inspection is fun yeah because you might they'll typically do what two or three laps it depends like f1 will take usually just a single lap to do their inspection but they'll go around two or three times and sometimes well what they'll do for f1 is that after that's done they'll do what they call the safety car exercise so after they send the marshals back behind the wall they'll speed up the cars and then the medical car usually plays the role of the safety car while the race director car plays the role of a race car and then they will do a an actual restart sequence because one of the things that in f1 they will do every morning without fail is they practice the restart sequence and so what that means is during the during the track inspection they'll typically ask the marshals stations to hold out or display an sc board and if they don't they will ask the stations to display the sc board with the waving yellow flag a single waving yellow indicating this would be the condition we would be in during a full course caution or during a safety car period during the f1 and so the procedures in the formula one sporting code for restarting the race are very firm and they're always followed exactly and so we practice those so what that sequence is is when the safety car and the following car representing who would be the leader at that point during the race when the safety car at least an Austin gets to a certain point on the track usually somewhere around turn 12 at Austin it would be a different turns on different tracks the lights on the safety car will go out indicating to the racers that were about ready to restart the race and at that point typically although the the exact timing can vary because I'm not the race control communicator and they change the rules all the time typically the communicator instructs the marshals boards in and that means that the safety car boards will come in but the flags are still out so your yellow flag marshall is still waving the flag until such a point in the safety car is by this time accelerating away from the racers and they're slowing down beginning their little tire warming and when is he going to go game the safety car disappears into pit lane and as the safety car is coming in they'll wait for a time when either the leader gets to a certain point where the safety car is in I don't know exactly where it is you know we never know either it's the race director and race control telling the race communicator at certain at some certain point they'll say flags in and so all the marshals at the same time will bring their yellow flags in and we at finish are the only ones that will display a green flag and that flag even though there's no car in the area that we're usually waiting for their games to conclude we're waving green waiting for the first car to come by and we'll wave that green until all cars has seen that green and that point we're racing again so that sequence is practiced every single morning of an F1 event yeah it's just like a dress rehearsal essentially we got to look good on TV we got to look good in front of the FIA folks so well it's more than just looking good it's making sure that the procedure which is very expected by the drivers they know exactly what they're going to look for and any variance on that would be glaring and obviously we don't want to cause any of that so you know it's very important that the sequence be followed that's the rule that's the way they implement it and that's what we as marshals give them and so it's kind of fun I've gotten to do several of those I've got to do the first one at Miami we've done several at Austin you know it's a it's an interesting sequence that that we're all a part of but to every marshall on the track has a role in getting that race restarted properly and that's why we practice it in the morning yeah definitely all right so we've done the inspections are we ready for hot track yep it's finally right now we can assume we've passed the inspection now the benefit the the payoff of a great track inspection is that now we can go hot and we can see cars on course and get to experience the whole reason that we signed up for all this crazy 530 in the morning meeting in the first place definitely so we have a very strict schedule let us follow it it's typically referred to as the minute by minute and it is literally a every moment of the day of when things need to be happening and it is very imperative that we follow that as much like you know the only times typically you would go off schedule is you know for some super unforeseen circumstances because then it has to be completely redone right because it's like a race out of yeah oh yeah definitely so every day as we kind of mentioned before every day it's going to be a varying schedule depending on what's going on so typically with an F1 race the first day is going to be a lot of practice sessions and possibly qualifying it really kind of depends we don't need to get into the weeds on that but you know we've we've been so lucky at Coda to get a sprint race the last two years so in the past it'll be three this year I know it's very cool and so back in the day before that you know Friday was like all practice maybe there'd be a quality for one of like the support series potentially but typically there was nothing you know just you know Friday was never it was kind of the day that we had the least amount of attendance because it was a lot of just people driving around he's certainly still exciting but you know quality and of course racing is what really brings up it so we've been very it's been so cool having the sprint races in Austin because you know Fridays that this when you and I were doing start this past USGP and I have never seen turn one that hill so packed on a Friday yeah I don't think I ever I agree I agree yeah that was super cool to see so yeah it's gonna vary you know obviously though it's the Sunday typically is gonna be race day and that should be really all race I don't think we ever do anything other than racing on a Sunday right no it's pretty pretty much always racing yeah so yeah every day is kind of going to vary but of course we're gonna treat it treat them all the same with the same level of you know we're pan intention we're you know we're doing everything as we're supposed to and all that kind of stuff is just more of what we're actually expecting so there might be more kind of promoter activity as it's typically referred to on the minute by minute so we might have some hot laps we might have some demonstrations I know we had some filming stuff going on well that was fun watching that I'm I'm excited to see that f1 movie I'm I'm happy to see these trailers coming out and it looks really cool of course it's got its Hollywood elements you know with cars flying off of the corners and spins that you wouldn't see an f1 but you know it really looks like spot on I mean at Vegas last year it was filming almost between every single session that we had on the track there was a filming slot in there and those apex GP cars were going round and round and round yeah every single time they would make the same moves every time but it was still kind of cool to watch so yeah I mean every single second of the weekend is accounted for in the minute by minutes yeah definitely there's no no time wasted and of course on on Sunday on race day there's all kinds of fanfare you know typically we'll get some musicians we'll get some stuff like that to really pump up the crowd and I'm all I'm definitely curious I need to attend or work more international races to see because when we were in start this past year you know you had the the UT band and the Dallas Cab what you all that stuff it's just like is I wonder if they put on a show is flashy and then of course Vegas had a very flashy show too so it's always kind of cool to see that so anyway let's talk about the different roles for let's start with F and C which we've previously mentioned in other episodes is flagging in communications so there's different roles at a flag post so there's five we have of course our chief post Marshall is that did I get the C right it's not you did chief post Marshall he's the boss yes he's the boss there there are plenty of qualified she female chief post Marshall this not a it's not a a thing chief post Marshall is the boss the boss that's the person that's essentially who you are reporting to for the weekend these people are vetted you know make sure that you know what you're doing typically you would have some sort of licensure showing that yes I have proficiency and knowing you know proper procedures and whatever so that's going to be who's in charge the other four we're going to have is our radio Marshall who that's the person that's going to be talking on the radio to race control we have a yellow flag Marshall a blue flag Marshall and a TSP which Jamie mentioned earlier which is going to be controlling the light panel what does TSP stand for I've never actually found that out I have no idea what TSP stand for there you go yeah I think so and you know I in our last episode we talked about the flags and we gave a lot of talk to the yellow and the blue flags so we won't go over them again but and if you if you missed I go check out episode two but I was banging my head against the wall because I realized we neglected to mention the TSP once during that but basically the TSP is the electronic version of the blue flag and the yellow flag combined so they just get to do and the E flags and their flag is the most visible because it's that light panel but but the TSP is a is a very interesting position because they're carrying literally or with a strap around their neck this fairly large panel and they have buttons that they push to coincide with the flag condition that the Marshalls at their station are waving so you know if there's a spin then the TSP will you know if that is in their sector they will push the yellow button and signal yellow to the drivers via the E flags and that's kind of a cool role as I said I've done it before and I really kind of enjoyed it it was a lot of fun except for the part where I got rained on so you know that's that's the order of the roles now what I will say is that when you are at a F1 event when you are assigned a role that means that for all F1 sessions including practices and qualities you are in that role so if you are the yellow flag Marshall you are yellow flag that's that's your job as you are standing in that position for the yellow flagger in that turn post and you are holding a yellow flag and waving it if you need to during the other sessions such as support series you could be comms you could be TSP you might rotate through you know various different positions during the support events it's for the F1 events that your assignment by by way of your tabard is what you were doing in that role for the station it depends of course on your CPM but you know that's that's kind of a cool thing is that you know when I was comms for the 2016 USGP I was comms and you know for several of the sessions I would run the TSP panel and for other sessions I was on the radio you know and and it was a lot of fun because I got to do different things but during the F1 session whatever your tabard says you're doing is what you're doing so you know there's a little bit of opportunity to do different things and to experience different parts of the weekend at an F1 event just understand that you know for F1 your role will be strictly defined yeah and we might want to mention what a tabard is because I had no idea when I first had a good idea so a tabard is kind of like a little smock type of thing you've probably seen them on TV if you've seen anybody run out on track it I don't know how else to describe it's kind of like a penny or whatever it's a it's a uniform is it a vest yeah kind of it's not as you throw it on on top of whatever it is you happen to be wearing that day it might be an orange jumpsuit it might be an ostentable blue jumpsuit but you put it on on top and that lets everyone know they're standardized and they are printed per circuit and per race and they are yours to keep at the end of the race too so you know that's kind of your resume too as you build up your F1 experience and your FIA experience you'll collect different tabards for for all the work you do so you'll kind of have a history oh yeah this was the tabard I was wearing and back in you know 2025 when we did blah blah blah and so it's kind of neat some people like to frame them yeah they're collect them well I have three different ones I have a I think pit ppg and start and intervention I think are all the F1s ones I have so but you know but yeah so that's your uniform and it is a large part of your credential really you'll be given typically a wristband or a badge of some kind as well but your tabards also going to have a number and it is linked to you so when you do sign in for the weekend they know what tabard number you are so if you're off doing something you're not supposed to be doing in your hot you better believe someone's going to find out about it so word to the wise don't be doing things you shouldn't be doing because they will they will track you down yeah I think that's been a good overview though we got TSP yeah blue flag is strictly blue flag yellow etc the the chief or yeah chief post I don't know why I always get hung up on a cpm they typically are wearing the backup radio at least for an event like kota where we use a landline I don't know if we've gone super into what that is it's it's essentially a party line as we will so we can you can talk over each other but it's a we we have it on fiber now at kota which is great right so but we you know you never know when something could happen so every post will have a backup radio it's just like a handheld motor roll the type radio so typically the chiefs of the posts are going to be listening to that as well and there should be communicator you know on each of those lines and race control so they're going to be mirroring whatever one's saying so that's the nice thing like the the chief is never going to be in the dark about what's going on yeah because earlier you know you'd kind of naturally you would think oh well if you're the chief you're going to be on the race you know on coms well no you have a dedicated person but they're still going to be typically in the know of everything happening you know and the chief is handling a lot of stuff behind the scenes so to speak you know maybe there's a personality conflict on the station maybe there's you know somebody in the wrong place and you know or or somebody needs something you know the chief is handling a lot of stuff that's sort of extraneous to the calls on the track so that's typically why the CFM is not the communicator there's a lot of other stuff that happens besides and the communicator is focused exclusively to making the calls for the cars on the track the CPM is you know taking care of business running the corner you know running the flag post and so you know there's there's a lot of different things going on that's why there's layers to the communication inside race control there's going to be a communicator talking to all of these different groups so it can get pretty complicated yeah definitely so another role we have out out on the track all around is a sector chief and this is going to be the CPM's boss essentially so a sector chief is going to be the boss of like a little area of multiple posts I'm not sure how many you know how many sector chiefs we typically would have I don't know how what their jurisdiction is to yeah in fact that'll be a great thing to talk about in the future podcast because I know at Austin we have three sector chiefs roughly corresponding to the three different sectors of the racetrack that if you're an F1 fan you kind of know by timing I know in Vegas we have a lot more because I think it's five or six that we have in Vegas and the reason is because in Vegas being a street or a temporary street circuit the the sector chiefs can't travel as far as easily as they can at a circuit like Austin so they have to have more chiefs because they can't go as far they can't carry as many can't can't cover as much territory so I think it varies by circuit yeah definitely yeah so they still think that's a North American thing international marshals feel free to correct us if we're wrong yeah send us an email anyway so yes sector chief is kind of the next level on the on the corporate ladder if you will out there and they will cover both the flaggers as we just talked about and the next specialty I think we'll get into which is intervention um I started an intervention myself did how about you did you start on tsp actually I I started as a yellow flag I've always been a flagger um I've been intervention before but only for moto and um it was not what I chose to do they put me there because they needed they needed bodies in that in that role but I've always gravitated toward the flags but the intervention folks they're the ones who actually get to go out on the track during an event and you know pick up debris or pick up a car that stops in their sector my son was an intervention Marshall when when we had a race and they had I think it was Sebastian Vettel broke his suspension in turn nine and came to a stop at his station in 11 Bravo and voila his team had to pick up Sebastian Vettel's car at that point during the United States going on pretty a few years ago so you know the intervention marshals they uh they're a very rare breed but they're the ones who actually get to physically go out and touch the cars um if they come to a stop in their sector and they have to go clean up debris and and do the various things that need done on the track and so there's a lot of people that love that role I'm not one of them but um yeah that's not to put them down either the intervention marshals the ones that sign up for intervention they love it and they love jumping out over that wall and over that tech pro and running out and grabbing what they need to run and getting back and doing it as quickly as they can and they are a special breed of people yeah definitely it's it's it's fun if you get to do something I'll tell you that unfortunately my two times doing intervention between F1 and MotoGP um nothing happened in my car as a little sad but you know I'm happy for the drivers that they you know nothing crazy happened but at the same time yeah I was sort of hoping to get to it anyway that's okay it's it's kind of like a little lottery but it's also a great place to start because like for me when I first got into this thinking oh they'll never take me I have no experience well MotoGP I think we already blew that open secret they they just need so many people because we have to have coverage and we'll get into MotoGP more a little bit later but you know I didn't know the flags which is why I had no interest in signing up for flagging because I don't know and I didn't know anything about racing I only know slightly more about racing you know seven years later eight years later whatever but I didn't know about Haley and their concert yeah yeah but I you know I didn't know the flags and I thought oh my god I can't even imagine like half an of you know to learn this on the spot like yeah no so the interventions good if you're kind of you know dip in your toe and you know see okay do I want to do this and then oh okay this was cool and then then you can kind of learn more about it if you're a non like I said I I didn't follow any of the sport stuff before so I wasn't familiar with any of it but anyway so yet typically for an F1 intervention post we have the lead intervention I think I think they do call them the L.I. L.I. yep that's there that's their disengaging role you'll hear them referred to as the L.I. the lead intervener yeah and then they typically have a handful of intervention marshals I remember when I did it in 2018 I I believe there were four of us plus our L.I. I think and but I have seen just in passing when I've worked I think I was working IT a few years ago just for something different and golf carting out to turn 19 to fix to look at something and I remember seeing like eight of them so I don't know if that was just maybe they do it in hot spots you know it's 19 right 19 has a lot of crazy stuff up but or maybe they just were over I don't know just past Lewis Hamilton last year yeah so let's just go ahead and say maybe between four and eight yeah the number will vary and again that's kind of referring back to that track inspection thing you know they they're gonna plan for certain numbers of interveners at every corner so the number will vary you know at a at a station that's a little shall I say less dramatic then you know there won't be as many as a station like 19 or one or 12 where lots of crazy things can happen and you obviously need a lot more bodies yeah definitely and intervention they they do a really good training I think it's typically held the day before usually the Thursday and we go they go over you know all the different hand signals and you really do have to be all in sync with each other for that because if you are you know hooking up a car we're gonna have a high lift now which is essentially like a big giant pork lift with big wheels to drive through the gravel right and you know the interveners that's that's their role is that they are gonna put the strap through to lift to get this car lifted up and then they take it off they put it on a on a tilt bed but yeah there's a you really to do it well you need to you know what you're doing and really being synced with your teammates and make sure no one's overstepping because you know you got too many cooks it can just be it's aster so you know I think they typically have the person that's got eye contact with the high lift driver right so they can kind of know hey keep coming you know we have the different hand signals of like go up go down you know with the actual that anyway we won't get into the weeds with it but it's it's really impressive to watch the the trainings that they do they do a really good job and when the interveners are on point they can get rid of a car in an astoundingly quick amount of time which is really really cool to see because when you respond to an on track incident by jumping over the wall speed is everything and a global audience is watching you and yes it's fun to be the one out there but there is a lot of responsibility on you and it's really cool watching an extraction goes so well so quickly when everybody's focusing on a team and and it's really really something to watch one of the people I think I'd like to get on the program and talk to is James and blank ends last name but yeah there you go James Morales at the at Kodak because he is a personality in itself but let me tell you something when a car is is needing extraction you're you're he's the one you want to be on that high lift to to pull him out because he's awesome yeah definitely but I will tell you you know one of the scary things about L.I. and not to you know dwell on it too harshly because we've talked about the inherent danger in risk in what we do as motorsports marshals I could be wrong and I'm sure somebody will correct me if I am but the last martial fatality that happened to a martial was during a high lift extraction and I believe it was Japan about seven eight years ago there was a martial that was killed during a during a high lift extraction because he wasn't paying attention and it things happened so you you always have to be watching out when you're working around this kind of machinery and you know in this kind of environment where so many things can happen at once you know it is a really scary thing and that's why that training is so important yeah and we didn't talk about the looking for the light on the car and the gloves and all that too you know these are hybrid cars so there is that electrical component so and formulae is huge on this you know really hammers this home but for f1's the same thing and there'll be a light on the car indicating if it's safe to touch or not so that's always something I think it could be some people's instinct to just go go go it's like no no don't forget to look because yeah you could absolutely electropeat yourself so the interveners will wear what they call curse gloves and this is a three layer three layers of gloves so we got like the liner the plastic or the rubber the grounding you know whatever whatever we call it I'm not an electrician obviously the rubberized part is kind of like heavy duty it's a means of later it's an insulator let's you know call it what it is yeah and then there's a third layer that's like a leather you know the actual push glove yeah so those they do need to be wearing those whenever they're touching a car because you never know I mean what if that light malfunction somehow you know it's still your protection and I think they wear helmets as well so yeah I think we had that problem at formulae last year if I'm remembering right where there was a car that was a purple light and it took them like an hour to figure out whether or not the car was safe yeah you know I mean these things happen and the systems can malfunction and you know they're there for your safety but they will utterly slow things down when they're not safe you don't touch it yeah and it's also just for your protection for other things I mean all the pieces of carbon fiber all you know the sharp pointy things you might have to pick up it's not about the entropy but yeah so I think that's an intervention I should say for f1 you they do not deploy until control tells them it's a very choreographed dance that intervention has to do with race control because they will stage the interveners they'll have a plan worked out before they even go to the safety car board and they'll have the marshals in place and ready then they'll deploy the safety car then they execute the lead leader when you're listening to it on the radio it's really pretty remarkable to hear how all that goes down and you won't hear all of it on the main com nets you'll because a lot of what's happening in the background is happening on the the intervention nets meaning they're on a separate radio channel and you know doing all the staging but the the communication from race control going through the intervener's nets and the various nets to make things happen is is a really unsung triumph of all the things that go on during an f1 weekend that most fans will never ever see yep that's very true yep they do a good job with that um but yeah yeah so yeah intervention you do not go out until you hear unlike moda GP which we'll talk about later because that's very different you actually that's like the one time you actually can just go as soon yep that's right more on that later but um should we should we move over so let's talk about the pit lane specialties pit lane um so in an f1 world it's typically referred to as ppg not the not the paint chemical company um but the but pit paddock grid is what that is so you kind of knew what the second p was now I know yeah yeah yeah exactly so yeah so we have the you know pit lane is one component a paddock meaning support paddock typically I think is what that is in reference to and then grid which is going to be for the start of any races so those are those three components and they have lots of different people that work on that team I think it's typically around between 40 and 50 ppg yeah so we got their support paddock so what that is is um you know at kota we have our main paddock that's where the stars of the show the f1 teams they they claim the paddock right we have the support paddock which is at kota in the kind of what we call the crossover it's kind of in the middle it's the turn 12-ish area yeah and so that's where all the the opening bands if you will the support series they they paddock over there so that's where they're a little kind of a temporary garages or setup if you haven't figured this out Jessica uses musical analogies for pretty much everything and that's awesome uh I I'm I'm unconscious that I do that but no it's awesome anyway so they will be over there and this is a fascinating um dance as you said earlier the choreographed stuff that we're talking about is that when we have a weekend like f1 um we have to get we have to transition between okay so we had an f1 session and now we have a support series session so that's a very orchestrated undertaking to get those support series cars to pit lane to have their session and then to get them off this you off track at the end of the session it's because they are in a completely different area so that's why that team is so important is that they help deploy those so you know let's say we have a session start time at I don't know noon whatever we might send the support series cars I don't know 15 minutes before I'm I'm kind of arbitrarily saying yes but the reason that they need that extra time is because they're gonna have to drive from that support paddock take the track on come around come on to pit lane they might have some adjustments and stuff to make there uh typically they'll have to have their crew there'll be buses that also come with the crew and the tugs and all of that jazz we won't get into the weeds because we have some future special guests we'd love to bring on that would be very entertaining that would talk about no absolutely and so I won't get into that but yeah it's very important now that team and of course getting them off track at the end because we want to bring them into the crossover at coveted anyway we actually have to have marshals go out there and wave their yellow flags be like hey don't don't keep going around you got to come in here at this cut out to come back in and so it's it's a really important job to have support paddock so um yeah let's uh let's talk about pit lane we have our gate teams so there's gonna be different gates all throughout the pit wall and so they're those gates are most like a coda we have it like three that are you know you could fit a car through there of course then we have like a mandor version but for those those gates you know there's a variety of reasons we might need to open a gate for any reason you know whether it's getting cars out on the grid getting the mechanics though the carts whatever all that stuff out on the grid you know we mentioned earlier all the promoter activity that goes on in between sessions hot laps stuff like that you know people pay big bucks to get to go do some hot laps so they might stage their that might be a place so those gates as I mentioned earlier the minute by minute you know we have exact moments on those on that if you can believe it saying open this gate at this time so we got out people and and you might be thinking if you've never done it like opening a gate really well there's a lot to it there's a lot to it there's a lot to it they got like cross beams and arm yeah it's a hole it's a whole thing it's now it's it's you need multiple people to do it it's a very heavy pieces of metal that we block those gates in place just for everyone's protection to make sure that if you know God forbid a car smack that gate you know if anyone would have to hold yeah yeah exactly so that's we have the gate team we also have a push team which is a similar situation I don't want to get too far on the weeds with this because I could go on for days and I get carried away because I work the steam a couple times ppg that is but we'll have you know if it's a grid if it's a race and a car stalls on you know on the formation that whatever it is we're going to have to have a team to be to be ready to run out and push that car into one of those gates so that's an that's an instance where they would work together okay and you can open this gate we're bringing this car in here so that's another one of the things we also have the the grid of course so that's something that we do for the start of a race so everybody deploys everybody will have be assigned to a grid position well 20 of the the 40 or so team members get it so it's a very coveted spot yes it's kind of a once you you've uh you've gotta earn it you're not gonna get on the first time your first time you're gonna be working in the support paddock let's just be honest so if you are so lucky you'll be assigned a grid position um so you'll go out there and when they're doing all the fanfare all the interviews all that jazz all the photo stuff on the on the grid so once the grid clears what you're doing is you are standing literally next to the car so I I was standing next to Okan in Vegas last year and so when they depart for their formation lap if anyone stalls you have to wave that yellow flag and that gets the race controls attention I actually did have to wave my flag because he kind of waited a second before he was like oh did I jump the gun anyway he did finally go so once they all depart then all the grid marshals retreat to back be on the wall and they yes very quickly and they have an equivalent of kind of the TSP type of thing that we talked about earlier where you have to push a button once they were so cars are out on track they go around for their formation that they come back to grid for the start so once my driver is in place I push my button saying yep they're here they're ready to go and then of course if there's any other stalls we have another button we can push yeah and they and they know to signal that if they have a problem they have a signal to that specific Marshall that they're not able to go and thus begins the abort sequence abort start sequence yep definitely so and then I think there was one other I failed to mention the green flag which which we didn't have like we had it then we didn't have it now we have it I think I think it's kind of common gone depending on who's at the helm of things yeah it's I know it's recently returned and so that'll be the person that kind of walks across with wave and the green to kind of signify eight we're going so that's another kind of coveted I'm still wondering why that's not a starter but that's okay I'll give it away to the pit grid people let them have their moment of glory so that's their that's their moment of getting to the starter there so I know that that was a very high level overview I call that I call that green flag Marshall at the very back of the grid first of all I love that job I would love to do that job one of these days but I love that job because I call that person the loneliest Marshall on the track because literally they're the only one standing on pit lane or on the track as the cars come by ready for the race I think that see to me that's Marshall bliss right there I just oh wow see I think I would be too nervous that I'd eat it and just grab or something and I man everyone's looking yeah what they're watching for is the last car to get in place when the last car comes to a stop is when they start waving that flag so what that does is it tells the starter who at this time is Rebecca Lee of the FIA tells her that everyone's in place and you can begin the sequence and that cues her to immediately boost the button which we'll talk about in a future episode with hopefully Rebecca she'll agree to come on to the podcast we will talk about the actual start sequence but that that's where the lights come on and the rest of the show begins and it's all Marshall's up to that point which is really kind of cool when you think about it very cool so I think that kind of segways into start would you like to take that one well you know we'll talk about start much more later you know all the starts for f1s are handled by the FIA they have a whole lot of very specialized equipment and very cool equipment it I wish I could describe to you and Jessica's right it would take a full episode just to describe the equipment that they have in the start stand but basically the sequence is once the green flag is waved at the back of the grid the sequence up to that point has been automated and when she arrives on the start stand Rebecca will push in the or whoever the permanent starter is of the FIA at that time they will put program in the time for the formation lap which is you know in Austin's case 2 p.m. in Vegas it's going to move up from 10 p.m. to 8 p.m. so whatever that time is for the formation lap to begin they will program that into the computer and that everything else happens automatically until that green flag is waved at the point she sees the green flag Rebecca's going to push the start button which happens to be green and then that will begin the light sequence she's monitoring the cars in front of her plus the monitors that they bring up on the screen that shows the status of those TSP boards on the grid that you were referring to a moment ago Jessica if one of them turns yellow then she'll immediately move to the abort start sequence but as long as they stay green or off in this case then she'll continue with the light sequence five lights on then she'll push the button the second time the lights go off and the race begins and it's really wild how fast that goes when you're standing in that start stand watching everything happen and the cars come up and you hear you know the crowds excited the Marshall walks across the lights are already moving by the time you move there she's quick she doesn't waste any time and then you know next thing you know lights are off and there go the cars and it is just that fast but there's a lot of you know alternative you know if somebody throws a yellow on the grid you know that maybe a driver signified that they're not ready to go or maybe they stall when they're getting off the grid or something like that actually if they stall that's a whole different thing because we'll have already started the race but the whole start sequence for an F1 race is super intense and super fast the first time the first time I was on grid for or on the start line first I couldn't believe it it was like already started before I even processed what was going on so yeah it's really crazy how it happens but it's a lot of fun to be a part of oh definitely and it's not just some hiddly little like laptop they're using it looks like something you'd launch a rocket with it is one of the most complicated pieces of software I've ever seen and believe me I work with software every day it is a astonishing piece of software that they used to to regulate and control and monitor the F1 events life the only way you can see it as a civilian is as a starter and watching it go is absolutely jaw dropping it's the coolest thing I've ever seen yeah definitely so are there any other duties you want to review with start for the day and the life there's really not a whole lot going on you know our our job for the start and again we'll probably talk about it at a future point but the only other thing we have to do with the restarts which we alluded to and they can happen every time there's a safety car this deployed during an F1 we have to do that restart sequence we talked about when we were talking about the track inspection so we've had to do one of those here and again we don't have to do them every race but you know generally you can bank on kind of doing one a year anyway for those of us lucky enough to do all three of the F1 races in America every year yeah but um you know the other thing we do is we do the checker now again we don't really get to do the checker we do for the qualities and for the practice that that checker is my team's responsibility but for the races it's usually Rebecca brings out the flag and she brings out and believe me it is a flag um it's about as big as me it's about as tall it anyone knows me I'm not very tall and so this flag is almost the size of me maybe for some photo art when we get to our episode where we talk more specifically about the start procedures all uses the episode art that picture of Jessica and her her flag because the flag is as big as she is it's it's a huge flag everybody gives a scream for having a you know two hands and waving it poorly my my my my response is yeah you come on down and show us how to do it because it's it's a big quilt it's like it's like waving a quilt on a baseball bat yeah pretty much and it's yeah they don't let us really be very eloquent elegance whatever with it so it's impossible to one hand it I've seen Marshall's try it you know my Marshalls have tried it and they've like they've told me nope we can't do it one hand it's just impossible it's too heavy it's like it's like isn't it like a big piece of wood encased and steel than that the flagpole itself it's probably it it I mean it's monstrous as you well know and the one for the race is a little bit bigger than the one for the sprint I was lucky enough to wave the one for the sprint at Austin last year and I guess you couldn't find a celebrity but but that that flag there is no way you cannot two hand it it is it's just too much to do one handed and if you if you could knock it out one handed I would be impressed because it's even Stallone couldn't do it and I'll just leave it at that so for anybody like critiquing the checker give him give him a little bit of a break any of those people give him a break it's harder than the looks so one of these days I'll ask Rebecca if she'll let me take that flag up to the Marshall tent so we can we can prove it to people because they don't believe it they don't believe it but it's huge maybe we can buy an old one on TV now they chop it up into bits and they they sell it so yeah I was gonna probably destroy them yeah well I think that kind of covers the the core the core ones so I think after that you know once track activity is over track as cold as we would say the buses come back out to pick everyone back up to bring back to the meeting point at the end as I mentioned earlier they there's usually a lot of nice hospitality at these events code it always does a great job they'll have they'll have a dinner typically and you can just kind of hang out with your pals recap about the day and then also at kota we are always very lucky that they they do some shows they do some some a-list talent and it's always a big day when they announce the yes the talent for that weekend's f1 events it's always a big thing yes it's a huge huge thing because I believe in the early days that was a big draw before f1 really blew up the United States was to sell tickets as well we'll get some I don't know don't vote me on that but I think that was I mean you know there there would there's definitely a lot of people that will buy tickets just for the shows they don't care about the racing oh absolutely and great that's that's great you know if they're going to come out to the track and watch a race afterward you know that's even more people come into the event so I'm all for that I think it's a brilliant move and by the way for marshals that work the f1 event in Austin you get to go to those concerts by virtue of being a marshals so you know your tabard is your ticket is what we like to say to folks so you know you can go and watch those concerts and you know I've I've seen Taylor Swift I've seen Stevie Wonder Elton John Billy Joel you know these great artists that they bring in for the kota event you know that's your ticket and so that's a great benefit for working you know sure you're not paid for the event but you know the concerts are usually pretty pretty cool and and certainly worth going to you will be tired at the end of the day and the next morning won't be easy especially at five o'clock in the morning but it's a great benefit for having worked an f1 event yeah definitely is um and I don't know if we mentioned you know a lot of these events you can usually camp there too so at kota the the meeting point that we've been mentioning is in an area it's like a big parking lot where you can bring your tent lot and the theme is lot him and for marshal no I don't know why but um yeah you can bring your tent your RV your all that kind of stuff so that's one of the other perks but yeah so that's that's a nice way to end the day um so there'll be shows at kota anyway and I know a lot of other events are kind of I think stealing that idea um I know my favorite band played in singapore a couple years ago I was not able to attend that one but I'm still surprised he didn't go well it was a little last minute yeah it swayed for anybody that cares no one in the United States has been known to that band but British anyway but um yes that's a nice that's a nice nice perk for marshals a nice way which is cool for them so um I think that kind of covers everyone I know just we maybe want to briefly mention we did talk about a GP I think the biggest difference with Moto GP is the intervention and that is the one instance where you do not have to wait till control tells you so if a bike goes down the intervention the intervener's job is to help them get back up and get going again or help them take if they're done you know help them bring the bike back over make sure they're okay all that kind of stuff so that's the the biggest differences that you you can just go if you see that happen you go because time is over the essence with all that kind of stuff and there's you know as Jamie mentioned you know there's always going to be some element of risk with all this I mean we got machines flying you know insane speeds but with bikes you know the risk is I guess are we are are we able to say that's tiny bit less just because the tiny bit less but but I always remind my the the teams I'm working with and which is usually the ground post medics I usually remind them if one bike got there another one can come in and so you know you always have to watch your back just because just because the risk is less doesn't mean the risk is zero yep definitely yeah I remember them saying you know always make sure somebody is assigned to always watching your team like you know you're just there to observe and push them out of whatever you need to do so it's definitely a smart idea we're going to talk about Moto GP in future episodes since that's coming up soon here at least in the Austin area but one of the things that's important to understand is there's two different kinds of interveners so the interveners are going to respond as soon as the bike goes down I'm hoping that the interveners are moving so the the traditional interveners are going to be moving toward the bike what we call the track interveners they're going to be moving toward the bike and their job is to grab the bike grab any of the debris that may have fallen off the bike as it comes sliding to a stop the second group of interveners are moving toward the rider and the rider interveners are medics one of them will be a paramedic at the very least if not more we've actually had doctors in that role at Austin before which is kind of fun but the medic the ground post medic we have 26 of them stationed around the track for Moto GP their job is to respond to the rider and he'll usually the the ground post medic will usually have two if not three ground post medics around them what they call rider assist marshals and those marshals will be responsible for pulling the rider off the track on a stretcher but anyway those riders are those medics are responsible for the getting of the the rider assessing his his condition and then determining the best course of action so if they report a code that requires a medical response then we'll move ambulance perhaps toward the rider so that we can check him out in the medical center or if it's a real bad situation maybe we've had a high side and the rider's not responding then they'll actually move out the medical car which is an entirely different response and a whole different chain of activities takes place at that point so you know the the interveners for the bikes and the interveners for the riders are actually two separate teams they're working in tandem and we're hoping that the the one for the bike kind of protects the one for the rider because sometimes they can be in you know depending on where the rider comes to a stop on you know if they're on the track that's a whole different scenario we have to stop the race because we don't allow anyone to be on the track during a hot session so literally we would red flag the race right at that point because we have to respond on track so there's a lot of things that go into a Moto GP retrieval that we would you know have to obviously train the riders and marshals on but um but yeah there's a lot of moving parts for Moto and that's where that very much why yeah definitely and they have to bring out that doctor barrier sometimes it's it's uh I don't know how to describe that it's just like a big piece of like a big pillow yeah and it's just to protect them and also to to shield any photography thing yeah yeah yeah it's a big big issue yeah and then another big thing that interveners would do typically during the breaks is that they would go out and sweep they they do it TI as we say track inspection you know if we need to sweep any gravel back in we need to pick up any types of debris check for fluids on the track that's another big thing that they do in between but um I remember my first year I I get so enamored with all the pretty rocks I actually pocketed a couple of them thinking I'll never be back here again so I've just I've just announced that to the world that I stole two little small rocks from Kota I should probably give them back but all right I can if we need to but yeah lots of sweeping to be done with when somebody hits that gravel but yeah yeah so anyway all right all right there you go yeah on that note let's wind things up well that that is probably a great as great a place to end as any and uh as always we thank you for listening to the trackside podcast and uh we have now enabled some feedback on our website so if you go to our website you can send us a message we love to hear from you if you've got an idea for a future episode you got some feedback if we got something wrong or if they do certain things different in your part of the world we certainly understand we very much have a united states slash central Texas bias toward the way we do things in that part of the world and we know things are a little bit different in your area and uh we love to hear from folks if you've enjoyed this podcast even if you haven't you got some feedback we always love hearing it as well but uh send us a message get in touch with us especially if you see us pointing a microphone in your face during an event uh say something nice and uh you might hear yourself on the trackside podcast at some point and uh Jeff Jess has been fun it definitely has it always always a pleasure for sure so look forward to the next one that's right we'll see you soon on another episode of the trackside podcast we will see you trackside you[MUSIC]