Name: メルセデスF1チームのメカニックだけど質問ある？ | Tech Support | WIRED Japan
Uploaded: 2026-03-28T17:38:52.000Z
Duration: 16 min 44 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi, I'm Matt Dean, Chief Mechanic at Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team, and

I'm here to answer your questions from the internet.

This question is from the tools subreddit "mechanics": "What is your favourite or most underrated tool?" Some of the tools that we actually use are quite different to what you would use on a regular car.

A big mechanic's favourite is this one; it's called a bit driver.

Super low profile, we can change the bits over it quite easily, and

it's really good to get it into really confined spaces on the car, underneath the bodywork and the fairings and all the winglets on the car.

Actually, let's go and have a look at the tools.

So one of the favourite tools of the mechanic is the F1 wheel gun, and

this is used to loosen and tighten the wheel nut up itself.

Unlike regular road cars, we only have one wheel nut.

So as the car comes in, the mechanic has to line this wheel gun up with the wheel nut.

He goes on, pulls the trigger, as he comes off, changes direction on the wheel gun, the new wheel is fitted, and

then he comes back in, pulls the trigger to tighten the wheel nut up.

Once he's finished, he's lifting the wheel gun up in the air, pressing the button here to acknowledge that that wheel nut is tight and the car can leave the pit box.

All of this happens in less than 2.2 seconds.

We use this to cool the engine down as the car comes into the pit box, and

So we've worked with Einhell on this tool to ensure we get the maximum airflow through the brake ducts and through the radiators of the car to cool them down as quick as possible.

So now I've showed you a couple of the tools.

Our next question is from YGG: "Dumbest way you've ever lost a tool." Probably shouldn't say this if Toto's watching, but

I was fitting a fuel cell to the car, which I made out of a Kevlar, a very flexible material.

you've got to get your hands right in the corners to try and get the fuel bag to expand within the cockpit itself, the chassis itself.

I didn't have long enough arms, so I used a hammer, a rubber hammer.

Used it, poked the fuel bag out, fitted the fuel bag fine, fitted the rest of the fuel system, buttoned all the top hatches on, so it was all ready to go, sent the car out, and

it was probably about a race later that I'd realised I'd lost my hammer and it was left in the fuel system.

We've had other issues where tools have fallen out of mechanics' hands and they've gone down in between the V of the engine and the gearbox bell housing, and

all the rest of the mechanics just look at each other and go, "Oh my God, now we've got to pretty much take the whole car apart to try and fish this socket or the spanner out of where this mechanic's dropped the tool." So normally he's buying the beers on that evening.

A core user asks, "What is more important in Formula One, the car or the driver?" Obviously, we as mechanics would say the car;

Everything has to work together: the car, the engineers, everybody back at the factory, the engine side at Brixworth, and

that's why everybody works together to try and get those final tenths of a second out of the track time.

This is from Foggerty4: "How to become a Formula 1 mechanic." I get asked that question a lot, and

I think the best advice that I could give you is learn how to use spanners, learn how to use ratchets, and

whether that's from when you're a little kid repairing bicycles, repairing motorbikes, building go-karts.

there's a couple of colleges at Silverstone, I believe, that you can go there, you can train, but

actually getting that hands-on experience is vital.

We often take people from the lower formulas;

they start in Formula Ford, move their way up to Formula 3, Formula 2, so it's a great training ground for mechanics.

And then once you get to us in Formula 1, you know how to use your spanners, you know how to use torque wrenches.

You've gone through your training, you've dabbled with bicycles when you were a kid, you've worked on your motorbikes, you've worked on your go-kart, you've gone to college, you've got all your qualifications.

Pester the guys that are working on the team.

Drop them some emails, get yourself noticed out there.

But certainly, if you're working in the lower formulas, Formula 2, Formula 3, they support a lot of the F1 races, so it's great.

You're in there, you're travelling with the teams, so you get to know other people, and

Next thing you've got to deal with is strapping George Russell in the car, on the grid.

You've got to deal with that pressure and getting used to the amount of people around you, the cameras, and

dealing with all that side of Formula 1, the travel, and

just working within a team environment, being a good team player.

From Gonzo5622: "Do F1 mechanics get angry when their driver crashes?" Yes, definitely.

there's a lot of the guys, the younger ones especially, they can get quite upset about it.

Obviously, we're at the end of the chain.

There's thousands of people back at the factory producing all the car parts for us to assemble.

The car goes out on track, the driver has an accident into the wall, or something fails on the car, and

it's an awful lot of work for us to start putting that car back together.

Often after P1 or P2, there's a short amount of time for us to repair those cars, so it's all hands on deck to get that finished and the car back out on track.

So next one's from MeanDivide490: "Explain like I'm five.

Why are F1 drivers hot if wind is coming at them at 200 to 300 kilometres per hour?" Often we're working in places like Singapore, Qatar, where the ambient is 34, can be 38 degrees.

You've got to remember these drivers are sat in a really confined space.

They've got an engine that's running behind them, incredible high temperatures.

They've got the brakes that are raging hot in front of them, and

they've got all these electrical boxes that sit around them, so the temperatures in the car can get as high as 48, 50 degrees.

And in fact, now the drivers are wearing cool suits to try and cool them down during the race.

Also, there's small ducts in the side of the car that blow cool air over the drivers to try and cool them down during the race.

But you'll see in often races the drivers will get out of the car, they're absolutely maxed out, they're so hot, they can hardly stand when they get out of these cars.

Our next question is from GreatEmuWar: "Explain like I'm five.

In Formula 1, why aren't all the drivers given the same car to test who is the fastest?" It's kind of Formula 1, really.

Each car is designed by a different team, so they will always interpret the rules differently.

And also we've got different engine manufacturers, so it's not a one-make series.

Everybody designs their own car, and it's who does the best job will win.

So this is a question from Calvasaurs: "How does the F1 team manage to repair their cars in under a week after a horrible crash?" Often we have to do it in a lot less than a week.

Our shortest time period over a race weekend is from P3 to qualifying, which is three hours, so we have to repair that car in that time.

Parts will obviously come back to the factory then to get made again, but

yeah, we're often rebuilding cars in less than three hours.

If we have a big accident and we do have to repair the car in three hours, then what we'll try to do is pull some of the mechanics off the other car.

Obviously we have two cars in the garage.

We've got a group of 15 mechanics on one car, same on the other.

So if we are trying to repair, say, George's car, then we'll take mechanics off of Kimmy's car to start rebuilding that one.

I remember there was a time in Monaco where we were a very short period of time to get the car ready for qualifying.

We literally had two people on one of the cars, and

everybody else was on that one trying to get it ready for qualifying.

So next one's from Mgreen888: "What hand tool brands do F1 mechanics use?" Lots of teams up and down the pit lane are using a variety of tools, but

above and beyond the normal spanners and the torque wrenches, ratchets that you see, we'll work with different partners.

And one of our partners is Einhell, so we use some tools like this.

This is great for when the car comes in, it might have a little bit of damage that we need to just trim off and then use this super fast-setting glue to try and fix the car and get it back out on track.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

メルセデスF1チームのメカニックだけど質問ある？ | Tech Support | WIRED Japan

specific

trigger

period

practice