Month: April 2020

Triple Eight’s ventilators await Green-light for production

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Brendan Lines April 16, 2020

Away from the virtual world of last night’s Supercars eSeries round-two action, Triple Eight Race Engineering put the final touches on its ventilator project to help in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Triple Eight Team Principal Roland Dane with the prototype ventilator – Image: Red Bull Holden Racing Team.

Triple Eight part-stakeholder and Red Bull Holden Racing Team driver Jamie Whincup said the units are now ready for local production.

“Triple Eight are building the ventilator to tender with the Australian government, so all the engineers were all hands on deck last night building the ventilators,

“We can manufacture thousands of the units once we’re given the green-light, it’s good for the country to know if we need ventilators, we have an option,” He said.

On April 8th the Australian Government increased the availability of invasive ventilators to Intensive Care Units (ICU) around the country, establishing a COVID-19 Ventilator Taskforce in the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

A Department spokesperson said the increasing availability ensures a supply of suitable ventilators.

“The taskforce is actively working to increase Australia’s ventilator supplies with a four-pronged approach buying more ventilators (from local and international sources), manufacturing ventilators locally, repurposing existing machines, and assuring the supply of associated intensive care consumables.”

Triple Eight turned its attention to committing its resources to making a prototype shortly after the postponement of the 2020 Supercars season, following the cancellation of the Australian Grand Prix.

“Triple Eight as an engineering business, has just jumped on board we’ve got some of the best engineers in the country if not the world, at the Grand Prix we said we’re not going to be racing possibly for six months,” Whincup said.

“We put our thinking caps on and thought how can we help out what can we do to improve the crisis, one of those areas was building a ventilator.”

The effort of the Triple Eight crew has been joined by their IT partner Hewlett Packard (HP), who has helped play a part in the design and manufacture process.

Along with IT support, HP’s contribution has been to provide 3D printing of plastic components for the ventilator.

As Triple Eight pivots away from it’s efforts on track for the time being, it has allowed the team to think differently about business and motorsport.

“When racing is at full tilt you need to use all your resource on trying to make the car go as fast as possible,” Whincup said.

“But this has opened up our minds, that we do have some of the best engineers in the world and we do some incredibly good stuff, if you apply that to other areas, like helping save lives, then we can certainly do that

Queensland’s Minister for State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning, Cameron Dick, approached Triple Eight to come up with an ‘Apollo 13’ fix given the immediacy of the pandemic.

“It’s so impressive that, within just a few weeks, this company has transitioned their capability, intellect and resources to a product that could ultimately save lives,” Mr. Dick said.

The Minister’s office is expected to make an announcement on the ventilator’s local production in the coming weeks.

Off the air: TV’s ‘behind the scenes’ workers left in limbo

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Brendan Lines April 9, 2020

For now the spectacle of live-sport has fallen silent on the air-waves, as the bottom-line of the AFL’s gargantuan commercial interests with its broadcasters, sponsors, clubs and star-players gets decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic. There is however an obvious but less recognised spate of collateral damage affecting the TV crews who bring us the endless ‘on-tap’ AFL coverage we take for granted.

Every weekend just over 400 crew members, like Adelaide’s Laci Katsaparas, work behind the scenes of the AFL’s TV coverage across the country. It’s the ‘bread and butter’ for many of the crew members like Laci, who has worked as a Camera Control Unit-operator (CCU) for over twenty-five years broadcasting AFL.

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Adelaide TV crew member Laci Katsaparas in the Adelaide Oval commentary Box – Image: In Phase Vision.

For us watching at home, we sometimes get a glimpse of the camera-operators braving the elements on the front-line, but it’s in unseen roles like Laci’s, that teams of professional technical boffins put the show to air.

“I’ve always been a behind the scenes person, I like being part of the team where you’re not at the front where people see, the public see the camera man and that’s it, they don’t realise there’s another thirty or fifty people in a truck somewhere, buried in some loading-dock at the Adelaide Oval,” Laci says.

‘Unmanned’ front-line Camera and Director’s positions at the Adelaide Oval – Image: In Phase Vision.

The TV industry is made up of a highly casualised and freelance workforce, so when the AFL was forced to suspended its 2020 season in response to the pandemic in March, Laci and all his fellow crew members’ livelihoods were hit with immediate effect.

“Yes, I can say that many people not just in my role in CCU, but of course the cameramen, you’ve got audio, you’ve got the replay guys and girls in the truck, the technicians, the whole team right through the chain has been affected exactly the same — no work basically, that’s it,” Laci says.

“Because there are no sporting events and no one can travel around from state to state, it’s actually hit us right in the head from minute number one, bang, there’s no television coverage.

“Unfortunately, I’m in the situation where I don’t work at say a television station on the news floor where they’re still going, but in our situation in the outside broadcasting sporting world, until they bring televised sport programming back, we’ve got nothing to televise, unfortunately it’s hit us very hard indeed,” Laci says.

Many of the AFL’s support services like Film, Television, Entertainment and Events workers, typically operate in a ‘gig-economy,’ where colloquially “you are only as good as you’re last gig” is a phrase to live by.

Further uncertainty surrounds the many TV workers on temporary visas, who would have worked on international sports coverage.

The fluidity of the pandemic saw TV crews released from their jobs just days following the AFL’s suspension.

At a first glance the TV industry operates like many other businesses, look deeper and you’ll find highly specialised-skilled people working with multi-million dollars worth of bespoke equipment, across a raft of live-sports all with their own tailored requirements.

Over the years Adelaide’s TV crews have bared witness and brought to our screens many memorable sporting moments such as; the Tour Down Under, Adelaide United’s 2016 A-League Grand Final win, the Adelaide 500 and Adelaide Grand Prix motorsport events.

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Adelaide TV team preparing for the Tour Down Under – Image: In Phase Vision.

But despite their skills, it’s not so simple for Laci and many of his colleagues to find other work straight away.

“The actual role as a CCU operator is a hands on role, it’s a right there and then job at hand, you can’t take it away unless you’ve got the same equipment elsewhere, the job won’t go anywhere else,” Laci says.

“The skills we learn along the way, how to install cables for public venues, to make it all health and safety compliant, those are skills I could take anywhere but of course I’ve got to find the right job to apply those skills, a bit of a yes and no question, I can, but I can’t find other work for now.”

When talking to Laci, you learn very quickly that he is very passionate and feels privileged to work in a job he finds highly satisfying, having worked at every Showdown — ever, Laci’s also worked with Channel 9’s classic Cricket commentary team led by legendary broadcaster Richie Benaud, along with other revered sporting personalities.

“I worked on a Soccer O.B at West Lakes in Adelaide, Pelé came down we had to interview him, so I actually got to talk to him off-camera at the end of the interview and he gave me a hug, it was really great,” Laci says.

The highs and lows ‘behind the scenes’ play-out much like the highlight packages we all cheer and rue over. For better or worse, working at an empty Adelaide Oval for the Adelaide Crows’ round-one clash with Sydney is one of those moments.

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An empty Adelaide Oval just before the Crows and Sydney round-one clash – Image: In Phase Vision.

“It was very surreal, we were walking around in the morning with no one getting allowed in,” Laci says.

“We had it in the back of our mind it could have been the last one, we prepared for it, but we also left equipment in thinking we’d be back the very next week.”

The state of flux around the unemployed casuals and freelancers from the pandemic is only exacerbated by postponements to the Olympic Games until 2021, signalling impacts to livelihoods are going to be long-term.

Broadcast companies have now gone ‘into bat’ for their crews to secure the Federal Government’s $130bn JobKeeper support package — which might be just the life-line workers like Laci need to make ends meet during the pandemic.

“We’re getting emails how to cope with the Coronavirus and how the company is dealing with the situation that is arising from the virus, including all the new government regulations and government subsidies that are rolled-out and introduced,” Laci says.

“So we are getting kept in the loop of what we can expect and what we are expected to do, they’ve been extremely supportive it has been great.”

Put simply the only time any certainty will return to the lives of Laci and broadcast crews everywhere won’t be until live-sport is back on the air.

Postponed Canadian Grand Prix pushes F1 season re-start into late June

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Brendan Lines   April 8, 2020

The Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal becomes the ninth race of the 2020 Formula 1 season to be postponed or cancelled this morning after event organisers received directives from public health officials. the postponement further delays the Formula 1 season into late June 2020.

Flipboard: Canadian Grand Prix postponed: F1 race OFF due to ...

Starting grid of the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix Formula 1 – Image F1.com

CEO Chase Carey supported the event organiser Grand Prix Du Canada’s decision.

“We have been working closely with our friends at the Canadian Grand Prix over the past few weeks and support them in taking this necessary decision to ensure the safety of fans and the F1 community. We always look forward to travelling to the incredible city of Montreal and while we will all have to wait a bit longer, we will put on a great show when we arrive later this year, ” He said.

As the COVID-19 pandemic further spreads across North America, Carey and Grand Prix Du Canada President Francois Dumontier had been in discussions with Tourism Montreal, provincial and federal governments.

But ultimately directives from public health officials  and expert guidance from authorities postponed the event.

When the Canadian Grand Prix’s new date is set is unknown, nor is the future dates of any of the postponed races, as Formula 1 tries to navigate the pandemic.

For the moment, F1 teams have been shutdown with their summer break brought forward.

 Formula 1, along with the likes of the McLaren and Williams teams, have begun to furlough staff and make pay cuts to management, while the drivers of those teams have also taken pay-cuts.

For now Formula 1 teams have turned their attention to ‘project pitlane’ accelerating the manufacture of ventilators for the medical industry to cope with the current pandemic.

’’I am proud to see how such wonderful initiatives and technical advancements stemming from Formula 1 are being applied in a time of crisis. At the moment it is crucial that all of our energies be put together to overcome COVID-19. We will welcome you with open arms at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve as soon as it is safe to do so.’’ Mr Dumontier said.

The next available date to begin the season is the French Grand Prix set for June 26 to 28th, a statement on the event organiser’s gpfrance.com website reads:

“In view of the information on the spread of Coronavirus, there is no reason to call into question the organisation of the 2020 French Formula 1 Grand Prix. The dates of the next Formula 1 French Grand Prix are therefore maintained.”

Health concerns arising from the pandemic’s evolution, along with travel restrictions and the availability of a workforce to provide the infrastructure, services and volunteers needed for a Grand Prix are likely to affect those dates being ‘maintained.’

Aston Martin F1 return on ‘Point’

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Brendan Lines   April 2, 2020

Aston Martin will return to Formula 1 in 2021 as a works team after a $1.9bn buy-in led by Racing Point team-owner Canadian Lawrence Stroll, the transition comes despite warnings from Aston Martin that it could run out of cash over the next 12 months and ends Aston Martin’s title sponsorship of Red Bull.

F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain - Practice

Image: The Drive

The $1.9bn cash injection approved by Aston Martin Lagonda shareholders is propped-up by $529m injected from the Yew Tree Consortium – a group of investors lead by Stroll, who will become the Executive Chairman of Aston Martin on April 20th.

As business’ world-wide struggle through with the COVID-19 pandemic, Aston Martin is not immune to the financial impact, signalling that due to ‘unquantifiable uncertainty’ the company does not have enough working capital.

Stroll said to motorsport.com the investment gives ‘necessary stability’ to the long-term future of Aston Martin.

The deal, which has been in the works since February is now finalised after many sleepless nights for the Canadian. — ending the British manufacturer’s 61-year absence from the F1 grid.

“The process of investing in this wonderful car brand has required all of my attention and energy for a number of months. There were certainly some sleepless nights. At the same time, it has been one of the most exciting deals in which I’ve ever been involved. Cars are my passion, a huge part of my life, and Aston Martin has always had a special place in my heart. To stand here today and announce that the agreement is finalised is a huge privilege and one of the proudest moments of my career. With all the paperwork completed, I can focus my attention on implementing the strategy to make this fantastic brand even more successful in the years ahead,” Stroll said.

Racing Point team-owner Lawrence Stroll – Image: BWT Racing Point F1 Team

The deal also finalises the separation of Aston Martin from its title sponsorship deal with Red Bull, which Red Bull said would end back in January. That sponsorship is reportedly to be $10m a year, with the inclusion of Aston Martin engineers embedded into Red Bull’s Milton Keynes base for added technical support.

As Aston Martin pivots away from its Red Bull alliance involving Honda, it course corrects the brand’s alignment with Daimler, who brought a five per cent stake in Aston Martin in 2013 and became its supplier of Mercedes AMG engines.

It’s no coincidence then Racing Point’s current Mercedes power-units will be in the back of its Aston Martin’s next year.

The re-branded BWT Racing Point F1 Team will remain at its current Silverstone factory in its new guise as Aston Martin Stroll says.

“The group of men and women at Silverstone are true racers and their determination and spirit is one of the main reasons I invested in the Formula 1 team. After 30 years, they deserve this opportunity to represent this legendary brand. We are continuing to invest in the team to give everybody the resources required and we will see the benefit of those efforts this year as Racing Point. With the Aston name comes more pressure and expectation. We will need to be competitive from the outset. But I have no doubt the team at Silverstone will rise to the challenge and do the Aston Martin name proud,” he said.

The ‘fluid’ situation of the pandemic has seen Formula 1 make drastic changes in recent months, one being the delay of new regulations until 2022, but the $US179m cost-cap will remain in place for 2021.

This could play into the hands of the newly flush Aston Martin outfit, as the cost-cap will limit the massive amounts of money Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull would have spent this year on their 2021 cars, before the regulation came into place.

Stroll says he is very frustrated not competing while the Formula 1 season is on hiatus, his team will continue supporting the ‘Project Pitlane’ collective of Formula 1 teams accelerating the manufacture of ventilators for the medical industry to cope with the current pandemic.