[JohnNik]

My Dad worked at Enstone (factory based) for a shade over 17 years. Started with Benetton, went through the Renault years and left Lotus a few months after Kimi.
While he was there he made friends with Phil Charles (who you’ve probably seen on TV a bit, most recently with Torro Rosso) and found out he went to my school a year below me.

Also through my hobby I know at least 3 people that are factory based in F1. 1 who started at McLaren as a junior design engineer, went to Torro Rosso and is now at Lotus. Also as a coincidence one of the other guys took the first guys position at McLaren when it became vacant and is still there. The 3rd is a fabricator at McLaren but I think is sub contracted.

Another one from the same hobby works on Lotus display cars, taking them to events. Generally I think the cars are a year or 2 old and again I’m not sure he’s actually employed directly by the team.

My Dad used to be a service engineer for a company that supplies many industries with destructive test machinery. F1 is a small part of their business, but was eventually my Dads way into F1.
I remember as a kid, one Saturday morning I ended up in the old Benetton (Toleman) factory at Witney. My dad was helping a friend measure a gearbox casing, there wasn’t a lot for me to do so I played solitaire on a pc until they were finished, I guess we were there for an hour or two.

People on the outside think it must be amazing, but in reality there is so much as stake the employees only really know what they need to know and not much else. Some people (my Dad included I think) get frustrated with not working on a car, but only working on components. One of his friends left to work at a Formula 3 team where he would have much better access to, and more involvement with the car.

The cigarette advertising days were the most fun (I am an anti smoker btw). There was more money to chuck around, there was often a free T-shirt floating around and the garden parties were legendary. Free entertainment, food and drink. I went home quite ill a couple of times.
I had a chat with Alex Wurz when he was a rookie, though my pep talk didn’t really seem to help. Jenson was at one of the winter parties I went to but I didn’t get to talk to him, I don’t think many people did.

One year I had to leave the garden party early. After I left this happened, my girlfriend on the left and my sister on the right. To say I was disappointed is an understatement.

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