On March 16, a much-anticipated championship will begin. Three, perhaps four teams are ready to compete for the world title at the dawn of a new regulatory era. But some have been thinking about and preparing for the 2025 season for a long time. We’re not talking about engineers and designers, who finalized this year’s cars months ago, but about Franco Massaro, the Italian logistics manager at Aston Martin.
Massaro is one of the key figures behind the scenes in F1, among those who make the on-track spectacle possible (almost) every weekend. With a packed calendar of 24 races, managing a team’s logistics is no small feat.
“At Aston Martin, we have six identical sets of equipment, each worth about £2 million. These include car components, the pit wall, and everything we use to set up the garage. Each set consists of five containers with garage equipment and two containers for hospitality items,” says Franco Massaro. Altogether, it amounts to over 50 tons of material.
**Sea transport: lower costs, but plenty of challenges**
“Over the years, the volume of goods we need to transport has grown significantly,” explains Franco Massaro. “Air freight costs are now sky-high, so we focus much of our logistics on sea transport.” The advantages of sea transport are considerable. “Take a single car stand, for example. Shipping it by sea saves £250,000 per season compared to air freight.”
Regarding the distribution of materials, two sets are reserved for European races, while the remaining four travel around the world to cover events outside the continent.
“Typically, we arrive at the circuit 10 days before each race,” continues Massaro. “Sensitive or non-waterproof equipment is immediately stored in the assigned garage, while the rest remains outside. A team arrives on the Saturday before the race to handle assembly, and we hand over all the materials to them.”
Transporting millions of pounds’ worth of equipment worldwide involves significant risks that can cause delays or even disruptions. “In the Red Sea or the Suez Canal, we’ve faced some issues,” confirms Massaro. “There have been instances where ships were targeted by groups aiming to halt service. Many shipping companies now choose to bypass the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, which leads to significant delays for us. Last year, we even shipped goods to Japan via the United States, which isn’t exactly a standard route.
“Unlike airlines, shipping companies are unpredictable: they often change routes or skip ports altogether. Our control over these factors is minimal; the best we can do is request that our containers be left at a port. I think I’ve become obsessed with online shipment tracking—it turns into a genuine addiction after a while.”
2025 Championship: everything ready
As for the preparation for the championship starting in March, Massaro explains that he and his team have been working on it for over six months. “We began drafting our transport plans in July 2024, as soon as the 2025 calendar was finalized. The containers that were in Mexico for last year’s Grand Prix are already on their way to China. We would have liked to bring everything back to England to check the contents, but we wouldn’t have had time to send them back out again. After the weekend in Shanghai, the same materials will head to the United States to arrive in time for the Miami and Montreal GPs.
“Despite the proximity, for Japan we’ll use another set of materials currently here at the factory after returning from Azerbaijan. For the first Grand Prix [in Australia], we’ll use the equipment from Qatar, as the set from Abu Dhabi is already in Bahrain for pre-season testing and will remain there until the race. For Europe, we’ll use the sets currently returning from Brazil and Las Vegas. Hopefully, they’ll arrive soon!”
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