Ahead of the British Grand Prix, we look at the engineering benefits that motorsport delivers to the real world.
As the great and the good descend upon Silverstone this weekend for the British Grand Prix, the plight of the humble motorcar is unlikely to be the hot topic on everyone’s lips. Motorsport – and Formula 1 in particular – generally seems a million miles away from the daily battles of commuters, crawling along the M25 with ne’er a pit crew in sight. But behind the glory of the podium, behind the champagne and the yachts, there is undoubtedly some of the most advanced engineering on the planet taking place.
Although some remain unconvinced that the developments made in Formula 1 have any benefit for the wider automotive industry, the link between race and road is one that the motorsport community is keen to emphasise. This week, leaders from that community were brought together at Silverstone under the flag of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), to discuss the transferability of technologies between motorsport and the car industry.
Alongside speakers from Williams Advanced Manufacturing, Formula E and RaceLogic, Hugh Dickerson – Google’s senior head of automotive – delivered one of the keynote addresses. His presence pointed to a wider crossover in the automotive world, where companies like Tesla, Bosch and Google are making some of the biggest leaps forward, rather than traditional car manufacturers. The blasphemous notion of autonomous technology appearing in motorsport – for pit lane or safety car use – was even mentioned.
According to Chris Aylett, CEO of the Motorsport Industry Association (MIA), the idea that motorsport is wildly disconnected from the rest of the automotive sector is an out-dated one. He believes engineering innovations in motorsport have a significant impact on wider industry, and shouldn’t be overshadowed by the celebrity and spectacle of race weekends.
“We can’t get away from the fact that we are in a sports entertainment business that has engineering as a critical part of what it does,” he told The Engineer.
“There’s no harm in enjoying engineering. This is a sports entertainment that conveys to millions around the world what fun engineering can be, and there should be more fun in engineering, not less…if it doesn’t entertain the general public, then we don’t get any sponsorship and we don’t get any interest from OEMs or anybody else.”
Aylett believes the expertise developed in the UK through motorsport is vital for the health of engineering in the country. No less than seven of the ten current Formula One constructors have a UK base, and the knowledge and skills that arise from that can’t help but trickle down across automotive and other industry sectors. In particular, Aylett believes the development of prototypes is a core competency developed in top-level motorsport that will have a huge benefit to the UK moving forward.
“By far the most relevant thing that motorsport has found to do, is in this field, that’s based on the fact that we effectively race prototypes,” he said. “And prototype building, for the next decade or two decades, is going to be a real problem for our engineering industry with so much change coming. Not just automotive, but all over the place.”
“So having a capability in the UK to build prototypes – faster than anybody in the world – is an asset to the UK. And that’s what motorsport has got, and it will become very relevant to the other engineering sectors, but in a way that doesn’t necessarily change the entertainment, it just makes the sector stronger.”
Earlier in the day, Aylett had spoken about Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), the scale used to estimate the maturity of a particular technology. He claimed a key role of motorsport was to develop technology through TRLs 4-7, bridging the gap between academic research and mass production. The wealth created through motorsport, said Aylett, allows for investment in this “valley of death” that would otherwise be severely underfunded.
Some would undoubtedly disagree, believing these claims to be little more than window dressing for a sport that often appears to revel in excess. However, the UK automotive industry is currently in rude health, and the wide base of knowledge garnered through motorsport must at the very least be given some credit for that. Exactly how much is hard to gauge, but if the UK continues to play a leading role in F1 – both on the track and behind the scenes – the effect on engineering must surely be positive.
Motorsport and defence – with broadly similar requirements – must be Britain’s most successful engineering industries. Motorsport spawns keen, competitive engineers at all levels and many have chosen that career path primarily to get involved in motor racing of some sort. Formula 1 is just the window dressing – the cherry on the cake – and the UK has a great depth of Motorsport which gives the engineer a means to enjoy and extend their chosen discipline. All successful people seem to give of their best when under competitive pressure and motorsport provides that in spades.
There is a disconnect between the use of five-point harnesses and air bags.
I have never thought well of a gun going off in my face if I have a crash, even less so with the problems inherent in Takata air bags. Those are definitely a problem on this side of the pond.
I along with many thousands of motor sport enthusiasts enjoyed the British E-Prix at Battersea Park last weekend and it was good to learn that the power to charge the batteries of these pure electric vehicles was generated on site using non fossil glycerine as the fuel. This is the type of automotive development that is urgently needed so we can stop burning fossil fuels and hopefully keep within the 2 deg C global temperature rise.
Richard Jenvey, hello
Ref your post. I think you might want to add Aerospace and Oil and Gas Engineering.
“Motorsport and defence – with broadly similar requirements – must be Britain’s most successful engineering industries.”
Who actually pays for both in the end?
(i) the TV ‘rights’ and sponsorship -ie off-shoots of the ‘meja’/PR/marketing/smooze/ bubble that has literally (and actually) taken over so/too much of the world’s commerce. ie we as consumers, paying a praemium for every product we buy to pay for the ….you get the idea.
[I still wonder at the fact that in the 2012 Olympics approx 10,000 athletes arrived to compete and 20,000 meja persons arrived to describe such!]
(ii) various government individuals and agencies (all over the world) ie civil? servants who allocate other people’s money to buy ‘protection?’
I will allow MB’s additions [though previous posts about the inherent waste in aero-military (as opposed to civil aviation) expenditure still apply]: because these are industries where individuals do eventually buy what they need. Transport and travel: and power for the car, home, etc… But in essence any ‘industry’ which has a long and expensive chain of ‘middle-men’ between producer and final customer is going to be ‘hit’ by the costs thereof.
Our Victorian manufacturing ancestors (there they are again!) looked down on grocers and drapers as nothing in the grand scheme of commerce: as they did the clerks who counted up after the event. Sadly the latter have gained complete control.
Mike B
One final point:
in my House (Derby, at a rather special boarding school for which the ONLY entry requirement was that one’s father had been a Freemason and was dead!) when I was Head of it in 1958/9 was a rather disruptive, rather spotty, unkempt, bespectacled boy who was always in trouble for breaking the rules, cheeking his seniors, not showing the right ‘spirit’, not being sporty, who I bullied terribly….a terrible cadet (we played soldiers twice a week) and who seemed to be destined for a career on the dole. Another even spottier boy, with even less to recommend him, and whom I used to punish as his platoon sergeant by making him double on the spot with his rifle above his head….eventually became the CEO of British Aerospace: Mrs Thatcher’s favourite capitalist (not that that is any accolade)
Whatever happened to the first one?
Dr Harvey Poltlethwaite, perhaps the best and most successful designer of Formula 1 cars and drive-trains in his generation.
May I claim some of their kudos? for setting them onto the paths of glory?
Mike B