Today the place is at a standstill, which isn't surprising. It's a muggy afternoon. Others scribble figures on pads of paper. If we are in trouble, they're here until midnight, and then here again at 6 am. The team's top driver, Mika Hakkinen, enters the garage through a back door, dressed in a silvery suit that looks just right for an extraterrestrial.
All systems are go.
He puts on his helmet and squirms into the car's narrow cockpit. Everyone slides sound-insulating headphones over their ears as the car's engine abruptly belches to life. Monza, we have liftoff. Hakkinen is heading out to the track for a practice run before Sunday's Italian Grand Prix. The discipline you have to bring to the technical exercise is extreme.