My Race Weekend: Head of hospitality

Red Bull Racing's head of hospitality Christian Kolleritsch talks Crash.net through a typical weekend at the circuit.

Early arrival

We arrive from Sunday and we start to set up the hospitality on Monday. Monday is set-up day and people from the team are already here because they have to set up the garage as well. So by Monday lunchtime we are already starting to cook. From Tuesday and Wednesday more team members come and we are cooking for greater and greater numbers. It's all in the planning: menus are all arranged and organised before we travel. We need to give our suppliers the information of what we need weeks before each race and then when we are arrive we are still trying to find local products, fresh products... It depends a bit on the market, but we have to be bit flexible, albeit with some clear ideas in advance.

Thursday

By Thursday we'll have the whole team here, and possibly a few guests, but for us the race weekend starts on Friday. At some circuits the hospitality suites are quite small, which can be a bit difficult. We will have fewer guests because there is not the space to host hundreds of people. When we have the Energy Station it is a bit different - we will have a larger crew, for example. But the first step is to make sure that the team is happy, no matter where we are. They don't have much time [between sessions] so we need to prepare everything to be ready at once because they don't have that much time. After the team, we try to do the best we can for our guests.

Friday

The time we go to the track varies, but our standard time is to wake up at 5.30 to be at the track at six or 6.30 - it depends on the schedule. Maybe we'll finish by ten or 11pm. At a race like Montreal [with limited guests] it is really quite easy. First of all we make sure that the drivers have their food on time and as they like it. The second step is to make sure that the team is happy. Then we try to satisfy all of our guests. My job is to make sure that our service staff is organised, that everything happens on time, that we have our hospitality set up, that everything works, that it looks nice and clean, and that we offer a friendly proper service. Those are the main points.

Saturday

Typically Saturdays are very similar from a hospitality perspective - the variety comes from the events that we host, and the number of guests to look after. But if we have an unusual session and the team is staying late to work on a car, for example, we have to be flexible, to stay later and prepare extra meals. It does happen. That is just part of the game and we know that and we are prepared. It's nothing new. If you are prepared, organised, you can deal with anything. We try to be flexible.

Sunday

After the race we prepare dinner for the team. On a Sunday night it is usually at seven or eight o'clock in the evening. After dinner we have to wait for everybody to break everything down before we can finish. The breakdown normally ends by nine or ten o'clock, so we finish by midnight, usually. When we have a back-to-back race overseas we usually catch our flights straight after the race and go direct to the next circuit, arriving on Monday. In Europe it's a bit different, because there we need the extra time to set up the Energy Stations so we start on Tuesday.

Christian Kolleritsch was speaking to Kate Walker