THE 10 GREATEST INNOVATIONS F1 HAS GIVEN THE WORLD
Formula 1 has undoubtedly made its impact on the world over the last 75 years...
Even if you take the phenomenal sporting achievements out of the equation – the championships, the records, the victories – Formula 1 has undoubtedly made its impact on the world over the last 75 years.
Its status as the pinnacle of motorsport has opened the door for a myriad of innovative technology that has trickled down into wider society, improving sectors that you’d never think owed a small part of their progress to F1.
From paediatric surgery to London buses and toothpaste, Katy Roberts has delved into the best inventions the sport has given the world.
PROJECT PITLANE
When the coronavirus pandemic put the calendar on pause back in 2020, F1 teams were uniquely placed to respond to the crisis. Pushing their intense rivalries aside, they came together and harnessed their incredible technological capabilities and resources in the creation of a life-saving breathing device.
Aptly named Project Pitlane, it involved the teams working alongside the UK government to reverse engineer existing medical devices, increase the production of ventilators efficiently, and design a new device.
The process of getting approval for a medical machine would usually take two years, but thanks to the relentless effort of engineers across the grid, this was completed within just four weeks, allowing an updated ventilator to be rolled out rapidly
SUPERMARKET FRIDGES
UK supermarket Sainsbury’s has Williams to thank in their mission to become net zero by 2040 as the team repurposed their aerodynamics expertise to reduce the store’s energy consumption.
Working alongside Aerofoil Energy, Williams created an aluminium device that echoes the design of an F1 car’s rear wing – on track, this diverts air over and around the car to maximise performance, but the rehashed tech has a different impact in the supermarket aisles.
When attached to the shelves of a fridge, it stops the cold air from seeping out and instead keeps it within the cabinet, saving energy and keeping the surrounding areas warm for customers.
Fellow UK supermarkets M&S, Tesco and Asda have all adopted the technology throughout their stores, with Sainsbury’s revealing that it delivers carbon savings of 8,763 tonnes every year.
LONDON BUSES
Williams have grown into specialists when it comes to implementing sustainable technology both on the track and in our daily lives, especially if you’re a London commuter.
Back in 2009, the FIA introduced optional kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) to the regulations and Ferrari, Renault, BMW and McLaren decided to try them out. The system harvests energy that is usually lost as heat when braking, turning it into additional power that is fed back into the car.
Williams developed their own flywheel-based KERS but elected not to use it due to packaging issues, preferring an electrical version. But the design was too good to waste, leading to the team selling the technology to the companies that run the iconic red London buses.
Regenerative braking has since been implemented in public transport across the rest of the UK, helping to reduce carbon emissions, improve fuel efficiency and lower air pollution.
PAEDIATRIC SURGERY
Watching F1, it’s easy to lose sight of how impressive the work of a pit stop crew actually is – tell someone who’s not a fan that four seconds is considered a slow stop and they probably wouldn’t believe you.
In 2001, two colleagues from Great Ormond Street Hospital noted the similarities between the efficiency of a pit stop and the crucial process of moving an infant after they've undergone heart surgery. Looking down on a stop from above, the car is in the middle and worked on by the team surrounding it, much like a baby on a trolley in hospital.
This realisation sparked an unexpected collaboration; McLaren and Ferrari are historically two of the most intense rivals in sports, but on this occasion they joined forces to impart their knowledge and boost cardiac care for babies.
The Maranello team noticed that unlike their crews, doctors and nurses didn’t have specified roles when it came to transporting a child from the operating theatre to intensive care – if something went wrong, everyone would rush to fix it, rather than leaving one person to it.
Once this lesson was applied in the hospital, the number of technical errors fell by 42%, encouraging staff to recommend the procedure to hospitals across the UK.
TOOTHPASTE
What could an F1 team possibly know about making toothpaste? The answer is not much – but they do know an awful lot about planning for every possible scenario. Ahead of a race, they will have a plan for a Safety Car period, another for what to do if the tyres degrade faster than expected, and another for when their rivals are faster than anticipated.
This meticulous preparation was put into place after McLaren signed a partnership deal in 2011 with pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which manufactures toothpaste for various brands.
Geoff McGrath from McLaren Applied Technologies analysed the process of a factory changeover, which is when the employees had to switch from one brand of toothpaste to another by rearranging tools and cleaning tubes. At the time, this took two hours and essentially halted production.
Using a computer simulation, he demonstrated how inefficient their methods were, prompting the factory team to come up with a refreshed seven-step plan that ultimately decreased changeover time by 60%, equating to an extra 20 million tubes of toothpaste produced by the end of the year.
MAKING 5G ACCESSIBLE
The importance of reliable connectivity for F1 teams can’t be overstated (imagine the chaos that would unfold if there wasn’t enough signal on a race weekend!). Gathering accurate data and sharing it with various departments is critical to their overall success.
So in another win for McLaren Applied Technologies, they harnessed the trackside technology that keeps their employees connected and built Fleet Connect, which is now being deployed across public transport networks.
From the UK to Singapore, it helps with the transmission of data and gives passengers a high-speed Wi-Fi connection, while also allowing rail teams to share live camera feeds and sensor readings to make quick decisions around engineering and maintenance.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL
McLaren’s skill when it comes to data is second to none, something that airports around the world have made the most of in recent years.
Over a race weekend, their technology accurately monitors where every car is on the circuit and how fast they are going, which is equally useful knowledge for air traffic controllers keeping note of the location of planes.
Places like Heathrow Airport use tech created by McLaren to receive live information about departures and arrivals, enabling them to anticipate delays and ease congestion in advance.
CARBON COPIES
Carbon fibre, an exceptionally strong material, had been trialled in the aerospace industry with mixed results in the 1960s, but its true potential was unlocked by McLaren engineer John Barnard.
He designed the first carbon fibre composite monocoque in 1981, which is now used by every team on the grid and demonstrated how important the material could be both in racing and everyday life.
Many devices are now made of carbon fibre, from a super lightweight wheelchair that is custom fit to the user to the BabyPod designed by Williams, a monocoque-like transport vehicle that is designed to transfer unwell newborn infants in hospitals.
SMOOTH SAILING
It takes place on a very different surface, but sailing is surprisingly similar to F1 in many ways, giving boat designers a great opportunity to learn from the series. It definitely helps when one of these designers used to work for McLaren as a Race Engineer.
Dan Bernasconi was responsible for the race-winning Team New Zealand yachts in the 2017 and 2021 America’s Cup, an international sailing competition. Incorporating his F1 knowledge of aerodynamics, he designed the carbon fibre yacht using simulation technology to take his team of 100 people to victory.
There is the added challenge of hydrodynamics, but at its core, America’s Cup is the F1 of sailing – a team of engineers must create the best car/boat they can based on smaller models, which is then piloted by a talented driver/helmsman to the finish line.
Aerodynamics and carbon composite technology aren’t the only shared elements. The yachts are covered in sensors that send real-time data back to the team for analysis, much like the ones that F1 teams monitor throughout each on-track session.
HITTING THE ROAD
Out of everything on this list, it perhaps makes the most sense that many F1 innovations have found their way into the production of road cars.
Let’s start with paddle shifters, which were adopted by Ferrari in 1989 as they were both faster and more gentle on the car’s components than manual gear changes. They keep drivers in control by letting them choose when to switch gear while making the actual change automatic. It took just eight years for Ferrari to add them to their F355 road car, and now even family cars use them.
Another innovation is the highly complex F1 steering wheel, which has a button for everything the driver could need in a race. Brake bias, the differential (the amount of torque transferred between the rear wheels), and power unit settings are all controlled with dozens of buttons.
Over the years, more road cars have adopted similar technology, albeit with not quite as many options – you’re more likely to see a switch for radio stations than DRS in a family car!
From hybrid technology to the extensive learnings around aerodynamics that progress every year, plenty of tech developed in the competitive environment of F1 is implemented in supercars and gradually appears in more common road cars too.
