in lieu of the anonymous account from a f1 mechanic being published about workplace mistreatment and abuse, i think it might be a good idea to start rasing questions about mechanics pay, quality of work and mental and physical health with teams in every motorsport. from those doing 8-24 hour long races in endurance to those working 4 days and nights a week on cars 3 weeks in a row at times in F1.
the health, wellbeing, job security and treatment of mechanics and other non-driver team members should be quality and it should be transparent. no matter the team, i want to know that their employees are being treated with respect. if not for their sake, than the drivers. because overworked, drugged, hurting and sleepless mechanics will make mistakes. and these mistakes could decide races or life changing events.
no worker should have to be pumped up by their team on painkillers to make sure they get their salary. no worker should be made to suffer through harsh comments and toxic conversations with team members.
we've seen stories about the toll that triple headers are taking on mechanics with the increase of races each year not helping. not that team principals such as Franz Tost seem to give shit. which is easy to say as a team principal, away from the hectic nature of the pitlane where mechanics can and often do get hurt.
from small and luckily non-harmful incidents like lance, mick, lewis and other drivers accidentally knocking mechanics back to the more gruesome Bahrain 2018 accident, that resulted in Kimi Raikkonens wing snapping a mechanics leg in two and recent slow stop for Perez this year at Sochi, that resulted in a mechanic recieving severe burns to his hands. (direct photos of those injuries not present in these articles thank god i dont think anyone wants to see that)
and lets not forget mclaren being accused of paying mechanics putting in upgrades and car updates with freddo frogs and being so bad at denying the high ranking team official who tried so bad to disprove it quit.
we need to remember these teams are not families. they are companies. and companies will cut corners for efficiency, even at the cost of their workers. and we shouldn't stand for that.
(and if anyone has any incidents to add or if i got anything wrong on this post please do go for it and let me know!)
There's also a post somewhere in my head about the abundance of people posting that Lewis not taking part in the Secret Santa vid makes him more unlikable/look standoffish, and how that just illustrates how much of a reality show F1 has become that refusing to take part in a glorified PR exercise can affect people's opinion of how they act at their job/in general.
imagine ostracizing the only black guy on the grid and allowing him to be sent racial abuse and actively rooting for his opposition and making snide passive aggressive comments about him and then wondering why he doesn't really interact with anyone else off the grid.
Posts over the last month: Don't expect everyone to celebrate Christmas, you can't force people who don't want to to take part in Christmas activities. Bear in mind people of different religions and cultures. Think of people for whom Christmas is a difficult time, it's not always a happy time for everyone.
Posts today: how dare this one celebrity not take part in a secret santa being run for entirely promotional reasons. How unlikeable of him not to want to perform for us. He's ruined the whole thing by not taking part
charles is the kind of guy who wears striped pajamas with a hat and drinks a warm glass of milk to go to bed and goes snooorkkk mimimi when he sleeps and when he hears a noise that wakes him up he grabs the candle on his bedside table to go see what it was