PETER CROLLA
When the Haas F1 team was founded, Peter Crolla was one of the first people through the door. An eclectic career in motor racing had set him up for the task…
The Haas team manager charts his rise from tin-tops to F1
When starting a new Formula 1 team the first step is to hire a workforce. In 2014, when Gene Haas decided to expand his NASCAR racing organisation into F1, the first fully paid-up employee was team principal Guenther Steiner. Long before original race drivers Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutiérrez signed on for the 2016 season came employee number 14. That’s Peter Crolla, then the race team co-ordinator, now team manager.
Crolla remembers walking into the small workshop in Banbury, formerly Manor/marussia’s HQ, in April 2015. The building was empty and they used the bare walls to draw life-size outlines of pit equipment which had to be ready for the team’s race debut less than a year later. Oh, and they needed to design and construct two F1 cars.
“The nine months between the company starting and going testing went in the blink of an eye,” says Crolla five years on. “It’s incredible that we built an entire F1 team in that time because we had literally nothing. We didn’t buy any assets from any of the teams that had recently gone under. We occupied the building Manor had and bought one freight shack from Caterham. And that was it.”
The personnel Haas assembled were from across the F1 grid, including those teams that went by the wayside, plus Renault and Mclaren – Crolla’s previous employer.
“It wasn’t until we had two cars leave the garage for free practice in Australia that we recognised – no matter how we did in the race – how hard it had been to get to that point,” he adds. “Then it was beyond our wildest dreams to have two cars in the points in that first race too.”
Before being a part of Haas’s sensational 2016 debut, Crolla had been a garage technician at Mclaren and had learned the art of keeping a pit in order from the fastidious Ron Dennis. He says Mclaren was a “steep learning curve” but instilled a discipline he maintains in the Haas garage to this day. Woe betide anyone who thinks they can leave an air jack or toolkit lying around.
“I don’t think there was anywhere better than Mclaren to learn the trade,” says Crolla. “They had incredibly high standards of presentation. Everything had to be perfect, wherever you went. You were quite pleased when Ron [Dennis] didn’t speak to you – because when he did, you knew something was wrong.
“I learned a lot. It wasn’t always easy but it was time well spent. When we built Haas, I had it in my mind that we needed to build it up to a Mclaren standard. They set the bar and we wanted to do the best we can.”
Crolla was destined for a career in motor racing after he was taken to Oulton Park for a British Touring Car meeting in 1994, when he was 12. At school he structured his GCSES with a view to working in the industry and enrolled in one of the few motorsport engineering courses at that time at Central Lancashire University.
While finishing his course, he contacted Formula Renault and touring car teams to help out during weekends. After graduating he became a race engineer for Fortec in British F3 and, after two years, helped establish its World Series by Renault team, before becoming team manager with Team Dynamics in the BTCC.
“When you work in motor racing you can’t help but recognise the spectacle of F1,” adds Crolla. “As long as you’re ambitious and career-focused and want to keep developing as a professional, then F1 should be your goal. Whether you want to do it for a year or for 20 years – it’s important to tick F1 off your list.”
After a season as a garage support technician at Mclaren, Crolla accepted the role of race team co-ordinator at Haas in the spring of 2015. He moved up to team manager when Dave O’neill left. The role encompasses many forms, from being a logistics co-ordinator and trackside operations director to having an encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules and regulations, while also ensuring the crew are fed and watered.
“There’s nothing like standing on the grid before the start of the race, or being on the pitwall. It’s the ultimate experience,” says Crolla. “But it’s only when you work in F1 that you realise it’s nothing like the glamorous two hours you see on a Sunday afternoon. It’s a fantastic way to see the world, but it’s bloody hard work as well.”
“AS LONG AS YOU’RE AMBITIOUS AND CAREER-FOCUSED AND WANT TO KEEP DEVELOPING AS A PROFESSIONAL, THEN F1 SHOULD BE YOUR GOAL”