Kirkus Octavius
General Manager
Kirkus is a money guy, not a motor sport guy. This caused the original mechanical crew to question his credentials when he was first appointed. As a result of that. many of them are now working at Joe’s Drive Through Car Wash and Burger Joint. He’s the spiritual heir to Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s baseball team. (See also, Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball.) He tries to run the team in a way that extracts every last milligram of value out of underrated assets which are in fact underrated for a reason.
While he will put a bullet to someone’s career if he needs to for the sake of the team, he will rarely do it gratuitously. (Unless you make the mistake of questioning his management credentials, but even then the ones who were dumped pretty much sucked at their job.) Not counting the ones that he was lumbered with when he joined the team, he has now replaced two drivers and one mechanic, and hated doing each one of them.
Yes, even Gomes.
Technically he’s Roman rather than Italian. He’s reputed to have been a behind the scenes associate of Augustus Caesar and Marcus Agrippa, but since he rarely consents to move in front of a painter, sculptor or camera, this has never been proven.
Max Boxer
Assistant General Manager and General Consigliere
Max is a talking Boxer dog. If you think this is unusual, you haven’t met many Boxers. Max was born in Armidale, NSW, Australia but his heart is from Munich, Bavaria, Germania where his breed originated. There are considerably more beer halls in Bavaria than there are in Armidale, and this is probably a factor to consider.
Don Vincenzo, a “good family man” from Chicago, once described Max as “That psychotic German hound”. (Episode 202107A, the leadup to the 2021 Dubai race.) Kirkus denied that Max was either German, or a hound.
Kirkus also refers to Max as a “resourceful and diligent consigliere”. (2018/19 Interseason episode.)
It’s wise to remain on Max’s good side.
Diego Arati
Executive Assistant
The third member of the front office triumvirate is me, the ever-enthusiastic Diego Arati, executive assistant. Kirkus tells me that I get a lot of pre-race information wrong, especially with regard to tyre use. However he knows that all of the best Executive Assistants have names that start with a D so he’s going to keep me around.
I maintain an appropriately respectful air of mixed awe and fear when I’m around Kirkus and Max.
Sir Thomas Winthrop, CBE
Team Chairman
Thomas is the well-connected establishment guy who was appointed by our backers to oversee the operation of the team. He is affectionately known as “That carrot-headed British idiot”.
I’m just kidding. Nobody says it affectionately.
However we usually say it in Italian since Thomas doesn’t know how to speak that. Fortunately he barely has a grip on English either.
Silvia Confortola
Lead Scout
Silvia leads the scouting team and, once a subject has been identified, does an exceptional job of gathering intelligence about potential recruits.
Unfortunately finding those recruits in the first place is where Silvia often fails miserably, and doubly so when it comes to recruits for the pit crew.
Silvia originally worked from a desk which was shoved into a corner of the front office alongside the coffee pot and breakfast pastries table, which resulted in her having a persistent caffeine buzz and a disturbing weight gain. In the 2016 season Kirkus bought her her own level 1 scouting centre which made her both calmer and lighter.
In 2018, with time running out on all of the staff contracts, he splashed out on a level 2 centre which he hopes will yield some better quality and more marketable drivers.