Pole Position: The whole team must be in top condition to win races

The seventh national motor racing season got under way last weekend with an action-packed programme of motorcycle and car racing.

There was a full day of testing on the Dubai Autodrome Club Circuit on the Thursday, with three hours of open pit lane testing for the touring cars and sports cars. This was followed by official testing in a series of 20-minute sessions by category. Drivers can get plenty of seat time and testing helps them become more familiar with their vehicles and the track for very little money.

It may be a surprise, but we have a number of European-based drivers who race in the UAE who tell me they do so because the cost of racing here is still lower than at home. Test fees, race entry fees and technical support are all cheaper, although racing tyres can be more expensive.

At the start and end of the season - October and April - the drivers, teams and vehicles need to have an unusually high degree of care and attention. Not because of any particular danger on track, but because of the hot weather and high humidity.

There is a need for racing drivers to be fit because of the extremely tough physical and mental requirements but, in these conditions, it is the mechanics and engineers that concern me.

If you get close-up to a Formula One team, it's striking that the mechanics look like a troop of extremely fit soldiers - and for good reason. They often work long hours in the most stressful conditions with a lot of heavy equipment, having to manoeuvre into difficult positions.

Even at GulfSport Racing's level, where last weekend we were running seven single-seater FG1000 cars for a number of talented young drivers plus a Group CN sports car for a two-man team in the mini endurance series, the challenges are the same.

My team started work at the circuit at 8am on Thursday morning. They worked very hard all day preparing and running cars in the test sessions until 5pm, at which point they had to erect the team awning, grab some food, then clean, inspect, repair and prepare eight race cars for the next day.

On checking the data from all the cars the race engineer found a suspiciously low oil-pressure reading, so they decided to play safe and change the engine. This work started late and finished at 4am on Friday morning. They went home for a couple of hours sleep then returned to the circuit at 8am, in time for the morning qualifying sessions. During the day their cars went out in seven separate track sessions and, of course, caused an enormous amount of work in terms of trouble shooting, maintenance, repairs and refuelling. At 6pm, with racing finished, they had to take down the awning and reload some five tonnes of cars and equipment into the lorry, finishing work at 9pm.

That's 37 hours straight with just a four-hour break in high temperatures and humidity. Who says racing drivers are the ones that need to be fit?

You can find the results of last weekend's action at www.dubaiautodrome.com/20112012-race-day-info.

Barry Hope is a director of GulfSport Racing, which is hoping to find an Arab F1 driver through the FG1000 race series. Pole Position appears every week in Motoring. Join the UAE racing community online at www.gulf-sport.com or on Facebook at GulfSportRacing.