2.8 sec wheel change & simulator king – Inside Coventry City’s Formula One bonding session
Coventry City news from CoventryLive as we take a look behind the scenes of the Sky Blues bonding session as special guests of Haas F1 racing team whose team principal, Ayao Komatsu, is a fan of the club.
Coventry City’s players were special guests of Haas F1 team at their Banbury headquarters this week as part of one of the club’s many bonding exercises.
Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu – a Sky Blues fans since he came over to the UK from Japan to study in Coventry in the mid-90s – was host to the group who were met with a warm welcome that included the club’s pre-match anthem, We’ll Live And Die In These Towns, being played over the speakers as they arrived at reception.
Ayao, whose team compete in the US Grand Prix this weekend in Austin, Texas, welcomed the players, having enjoyed being the club’s guest at the recent Blackburn Rovers match at the CBS Arena.
The players were then taken to the assembly plant where they saw Haas’ two race ready cars, before being given a crash course in changing a car’s tyres, simulated in a pit-stop situation. The professional engineers do it in under two seconds and the Sky Blues managed to get it down to 2.8 seconds with a player each on the front and rear jack to lift the car and two or three players on each wheel.
Ayao expressed his surprise, saying “Wow!” when told of the time and said that he was “very impressed,” while Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and Ben Sheaf did their individual rear wheel in 1.8 seconds, which is actual F1 speed!
Next up was a go in the F1 race simulators where Norman Bassette was the quickest out of the lads, and the most determined out of the group who insisted on having multiple attempts to get his time down to try to beat fastest man, Tom Leach, from the media team.
At the end of the afternoon the players were presented with a race worn Kevin Magnussen drivers’ suit, which will take pride of place at the training ground where the players have a ‘break-out’ area where they can relax and play games. Skipper Sheaf also presented Haas with a signed City shirt that will be hung up at the headquarters, thus cementing the connection between the two professional sporting outfits.
