Honda’s Formula One Racing Operation base in Europe

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. today announced that it will base its European racing operation in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom in preparation for participation in the FIA*1 Formula One (F1) World Championship from the 2015 season.

As announced on May 16, 2013, Honda will participate in F1, under a joint project with McLaren, as a supplier of the power unit including the engine and energy recovery system from the 2015 season.

The new facility will be the European frontline operation for Honda’s F1 participation and will rebuild and maintain the power units developed at Honda R&D centre in Tochigi, Japan. Honda will also base its trackside support operations from this new European office.

This office will be located in the new engine research and development centre of MUGEN EURO Co., Ltd.*2, where Honda plans to start operations from June of 2014.

Whilst the development and manufacture of Honda’s F1 power units will take place at the R&D centre in Tochigi, Japan, it was important for Honda to establish a European facility to support its racing operation. The U.K. is an ideal location; it is the home of McLaren, many F1 suppliers are U.K. based and with 7 of the 19 races taking place in Europe (2013), the U.K. acts as a global hub for the transportation of parts as well as team personnel.

Facility overview
Address	Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom Within the facility of MUGEN EURO Co., Ltd.
Office operations	F1 European frontline operations including rebuilding and maintenance of power units, and trackside support. Engineer office for WTCC activities.

Yasuhisa Arai, Senior Managing Officer and Director, Chief Officer of Motorsports, Honda R&D Co., Ltd. said: "With the confirmation of a new F1 operation base in U.K., our preparation to join F1 has become more specific and concrete. To meet and exceed the expectations of our fans, we will accelerate our development to bring back the unique Honda engine sound onto the track."

 

Renault Sport F1 technical director Rob White on Alternators

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Rob White

During 2012 we suffered unacceptable recurrent reliability issues with alternators fitted to the RS27-2012 engine that we supply to all our teams. At Renault, we take full responsibility for the design and integration of the engine and ancillary equipment supplied to our teams, including the alternator. We worked with the support of our teams and suppliers to develop countermeasures to eradicate last year’s problems. The work was underway before the end of the 2012 season. It was completed during the winter and validation was signed off in pre-season testing. These solutions have been implemented on alternators for all of our teams and we continue to monitor the situation closely.

The alternator generates electrical power to match the electrical consumption of the car and to maintain the charge of the battery. For chassis reasons, the electrical power requirement may vary between different types of car. In parallel to addressing the reliability issues experienced in 2012, and having consulted all our teams, we have increased the electrical power capacity of our alternators. To manage the technical and logistic risks, we have worked with two suppliers for the electro-magnetic components to provide alternator parts to our specifications. Responsibility for alternator supply to the teams and supplier choice for all components and assembly operations remains with Renault.

So far, no alerts have been detected with any of the 2013 alternator installations and our focus is seeing out the V8 era reliably and competitively across all our teams, while working in parallel on the 2014 Power Unit.

 

Episode 8: The cover that RBR love to hate: F1 Racing

 

Ayrton Senna’s Famous interview with Sir Jackie Stewart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdCWDSpwv9U​​

 

Bahrain GP debrief – The Racer’s Edge, Ep 7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5_ESc7vIL4

 

Press Release : Mercedes-Benz and Michael Schumacher: Facing the future together

Stuttgart. Mercedes-Benz and Michael Schumacher today announced a long-term partnership which will extend far beyond motorsport and Formula 1. Michael Schumacher will mainly be involved with topics relating to the future, in particular the further development of the Mercedes-Benz safety and comfort systems "Intelligent Drive", and represent them as an ambassador. For many years now the seven-times Formula 1 World Champion has been working on road safety; as a partner he will from now on be supporting Mercedes-Benz’s involvement in this field.

As a racing driver Schumacher’s motto was "If you don’t go forwards, you go backwards". Again and again he motivated himself and his team throughout his incomparable career to achieve new developments and top performances. Now he is actively placing his expertise at the service of road users by searching for the best solutions for safety on the roads together with Mercedes-Benz.

"The future interests me much more than the present and past. During my Formula 1 time I always believed that you must not allow yourself to rest on your laurels, but that you must continuously try to improve. In so doing I was very often able to rely on the help of all the technologies available to me in the car and use them to my advantage. That is why I am a declared supporter of driving assistance systems both in the racing car and in the road-going car", said Schumacher of the new partnership.

Dr. Joachim Schmidt, Executive Vice President Mercedes-Benz Cars, Sales and Marketing, added "We are proud that Michael Schumacher, the most successful and best-known racing driver in the world, is again joining us as our partner. Right from the time when he was a Mercedes-Benz junior and of course in the last three years as a driver in our Formula 1 team, Michael Schumacher has always been committed to our company’s projects. This is why it is only logical for both sides to pool their expertise and know-how and to use them, for instance, for enhancing driver assistance systems and thus improve safety on the roads within a partnership."

Michael Schumacher will be making his first appearance as a partner of Mercedes-Benz together with Dr. Dieter Zetsche on 1 May 2013 at ‘Handelsblatt PATHFINDER – The future starts today.’. "I wanted to have a clearly defined remit within the new partnership and I find it very exciting to be able to contribute towards further developments and the optimisation of safety together with the inventor of the car", said the record Formula 1 World Champion of this future working relationship.

 

The Racer’s Edge – Malaysian GP debrief (Ep 3)

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The Racer’s Edge from Malaysia (Episode 2)

 

The Racers Edge 1st Episode with Peter Windsor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyMx3EwRSFU

 

“I love what they’ve done in Austin…” Windsor spoke to Richard Cregan

peterwindsor.com

Richard Cregan, former Toyota F1 Team Manager and now CEO of the amazing Yas Marina F1 complex in Abu Dhabi, was in relaxed mood when I spoke to him on the Monday after Kimi’s win.  We chatted, too, about a certain new track in Austin, Tx…

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