WRC
Through the eyes of the WRC's unsung heroes
When it comes to those who work out of a toolbox for a living, FIA World Rally Championship mechanics are regarded among the elite in global motorsport. They are the true unsung heroes.
It is these hardy, spanner-wielding souls, often the first to arrive and the last to leave, who build, maintain and repair cars to allow drivers to succeed. Working gruelling hours, they are expected to perform against the clock in service, often producing miracles at speed in the service park while living out of a suitcase for upwards of 14 weeks a year.
When in full flight, a team of WRC mechanics can turn around a gearbox change in an eye-watering 10 minutes and service an entire WRC car in 15, such is the magic they are able to produce. That magic can often be the difference between success and failure when fighting for results on the stages.
But what is it really like to be a WRC mechanic? M-Sport Ford’s Garry Barker is well placed to provide an insight, currently serving his 26th season with the British squad.
“It has got its challenges and there are no two ways about it. Ultimately it is a way of life and it is a big commitment. You can make it work but it is not easy,” Barker tells Becs Williams on the latest edition of the WRC Backstories podcast.
M-Sport Ford's chief technician, Garry Barker
© M-Sport
Barker can trace his association with M-Sport all the way back to work experience as a schoolboy in the late 1990s, before landing a full-time job with the team in 2000. At the time he had minimal interest in motorsport but it did not take long for rallying to get under his skin as he rose through the ranks to become M-Sport’s chief technician.
From starting out on François Duval’s Ford Focus at Rally Finland in 2002 - Barker’s first WRC event - there is not much he has not witnessed in the sport. During his career he has worked with a cast of world champions, including Colin McRae, Carlos Sainz, Marcus Grönholm, Ott Tänak, Sébastien Ogier and Sébastien Loeb.
"I still learn every day. You never stop learning. I always appreciate all the lessons that all of the people along the way have taught me,” he says.
The WRC’s biggest-ever repair job
However, when it comes to putting those lessons into action and dealing with the unique challenges the WRC can pose, there is one moment that will always stand out.
At Rally Mexico in 2015, Barker was part of a team that pulled off arguably the greatest service repair in the championship’s history.
Coined the ‘miracle of Mexico’ while lighting up social media under the moniker ‘raising the Ti-Tänak’, M-Sport achieved the unthinkable by repairing a Ford Fiesta driven by Ott Tänak after it had spent 10 hours at the bottom of a lake.
© Red Bull Content Pool
Tänak and then co-driver Raigo Mõlder, carrying damaged front suspension, careered off the side of a steep gravel road running alongside a lake. The car rolled down an embankment before plunging into the water below. Tänak and Mõlder, pacenote book in hand, managed to free themselves from the trapped cockpit and swim to safety. As the unharmed, yet bedraggled, crew watched their Fiesta sink to the bottom of the lake, it appeared their rally was over.
M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson had other ideas. Not only did he decide to recover the car using trained divers, he also wanted the team to drain it of water and repair it in time for Tänak to return to action the following day.
© Red Bull Content Pool
“I think the biggest challenge and it will stick in everybody’s mind is obviously Mexico when Ott rolled down a ravine and into a lake,” recounts Barker. "That has got to be the biggest task we have ever undertaken. The car had spent 10 hours at the bottom of the lake and Malcolm still wanted us to fix it. We were all like, there is no way we can fix that.
“It was quite difficult from the very start. Obviously we knew Ott had gone off but because back then there was no live television and you were relying on GPS and radio coverage, we didn’t know anything. It was a long time before we even realised that he had gone in the lake and they were both okay. We sent a couple of technicians out and they went with the divers and watched and it took longer and longer to retrieve the car.
How a space heater and a container helped complete a miracle
So how on earth does one attempt to achieve the unthinkable and repair a car that has spent 10 hours at the bottom of a lake in just three hours? With a lot of hard graft, incredible teamwork and some outside-the-box thinking, as Barker explains.
“It was quite late and it was dark before the car came into service,” said Barker. “The FIA did their normal checks to make sure there was no roll cage damage. We then had a bit of a conversation between everybody about the best way to go about it and who does what.
“As it was a long-haul round, we had containers in the service park and we actually emptied a container full of tyres out and put a space heater in there. When we started, anything that was soaking, like seats and various interior bits, all went in the container for two hours with the space heater to dry them out.
All hands on deck to repair Tänak's waterlogged Fiesta
© M-Sport
“When you get going you find other bits [to repair] along the way and it was when a couple of lads took the top plate off the fuel tank that they found it was full of water, so we had to change the fuel tank.
"When you look back, there was not a lot left of the car. He hit the front-right corner and that was my corner I was looking after.
"When we started to take it to bits we could see the driveshaft had gone through the back of the engine. It had knocked the filter housing off. We had to find a bit of filter and we put some metal around it to keep the oil out of it for as long as we could. We took the turbo off and the intercooler off and it was full of water. Everything was full of water. We basically changed everything apart from the engine loom, main loom and the engine. I think everything else was replaced.”
The extraordinary repair did not go unnoticed in the service park, with members of rival Volkswagen and Citroën teams, among others, watching on in awe as M-Sport took on the task.
Come 1am, the job was incredibly complete but not without a few nervy moments. The car initially failed to start, leaving Barker and his team wondering whether their heroic efforts had come to nothing. Eventually, however, the Fiesta spluttered into life and, after a brief scare the following morning that required further attention, Tänak and Mõlder sensationally finished the rally. Tänak acknowledged the adventure by donning a pair of diving goggles on the finish ramp.
© M-Sport
Barker has enjoyed the delights of being part of successful M-Sport teams that won manufacturers’ titles in 2006, 2007 and 2017, but that repair ranks highly on his list of achievements.
“It definitely was [special]. We probably didn't realise it at the time and you tend not to take in the surroundings. At the end when we finished, people from Volkswagen and Citroën were standing there and it was like, 'Jesus, have they been there the whole time?' It was a difficult service to undertake but actually at the end when it fired up it was like, how have we done that?
“Even now you often see it replayed on WRC TV still or it comes up. It is a historical moment in the sport and to be involved in that is quite an achievement, although at the time it was a difficult three hours."
It will always serve as a reminder of M-Sport’s never-give-up attitude, while proving what can be achieved by WRC mechanics.
"The key thing is everyone has the drive and we don’t want to be beaten and if there is a way of doing it, we will find it," adds Barker.
Mechanics will once again be worth their weight in gold when the WRC tackles the car-punishing EKO Acropolis Rally Greece next week.
Listen to the full WRC Backstories podcast to find out what it is like to work as a mechanic for Ogier, win world championships, and keep morale positive in the most difficult moments.
© M-Sport
