As F1 arrives at Silverstone for this week’s British Grand Prix, we look at how innovation in companies at Silverstone Park has helped to make the on-track magic happen for the sport’s global audience.
The Silverstone Park campus is home to numerous companies who form part of F1’s vital supply chain.
A prime example is Silverstone Composites which specialises in the rapid manufacturing of intricate carbon fibre parts for six of F1’s ten teams.
Located close to Silverstone Circuit’s main entrance, expect the company to be on ‘speed dial’ during British Grand Prix weekend…
Nearby, EDM Precision is another manufacturing specialist to be heavily relied on by several teams and suppliers into F1 – it also produces complex parts for cars, often from difficult-to-machine materials using a process called spark and wire erosion at which it is among the finest in Europe.
EDM’s premises at Silverstone Park are truly ‘CNC central’ with over 20 machines and more than £500,000 having been invested in the best manufacturing machinery of its type in the last 36 months.
Performance Projects, a smaller engineering solutions company on the Park, is headed up by two ex-Formula 1 engineers, Terence Goade (ex-Renault and Toyota) and Chris Horton (ex-Cosworth [powertrains]).
Notably, Terence worked on the transformational ‘mass damper’ design that helped Renault and Fernando Alonso win back-to-back F1 titles in 2005 and 2006.
Whilst F1 is no longer Terence’s and Chris’s focus, their reputation across engineering has made them ‘people of interest’ for other tech sectors – in particular through their spin-off company OxDrive that has been innovating in the design of electrically driven, autonomous vehicles in agritech.
Dumarey Green Power is one of Europe’s most exciting innovators in the design and manufacture of radical energy storage systems which have helped to dramatically cut diesel emissions in industries such as construction and off-highway.
Some of those systems are powered by an adapted form of flywheel technology called KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) that was originally introduced into F1 in the early 2000s.
The Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub (SSEH) is a global destination for Olympic cyclists and also winter Olympians. The facility provides unrivalled expertise in improving aerodynamics via advancements in materials used for skin suits, plus the athlete’s poise which is refined in its data-driven wind tunnel.
SSEH’s founder? Former British American Racing F1 team aerodynamicist and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) genius Rob Lewis OBE…
Enovation Consulting, based in Silverstone Park’s Innovation Centre, innovates in developing sustainability strategies in Formula 1 including for the sport’s governing body the Federation Internationale d’Automobile (FIA®), Silverstone Circuit®, the Williams Racing® and Haas F1 teams, as well as the Canadian Grand Prix.
The National College for Motorsport teaches youngsters in a single academic year the fundamentals of becoming a motorsport mechanic – in short, the art of repairing damaged racing cars, often in high pressure situations. It also plays an active role in Silverstone Park’s programme with local schools that is opening youngsters’ eyes to career types and pathways on their doorstep…
Many of the College’s alumni have gone on to work in F1 and will be among the pit crews competing in this weekend’s Grand Prix and its supporting F2, F3 and F4 races. Notably, fielding cars in each of those supporting categories is Hitech whose HQ is at Silverstone Park.
Adjacent to Hitech is the Digital Manufacturing Centre, an engineering led contract additive manufacturing facility that provides high performance engineering and manufacturing with metals and polymers for sectors such as automotive, defence and space. In 2024, it helped produce the British Grand Prix’s podium trophies using re-purposed F1 car components.
F1’s newest team, Cadillac F1 Team®, now occupies two vast new industrial premises as well as considerable office space at Silverstone Park.
A fascinating fact: seven-times World Champion Michael Schumacher had his very first F1 seat fitting inside Unit 21 at Silverstone Park when it was then home to the late Eddie Jordan’s team that gave him his big break back in 1991. The building is still there, these days occupied by Bspoke Global Networks – a network solutions provider for major sporting events.
Two doors down in Unit 19 is famed motorcycle group Piaggio. Many moons ago, the same unit was home to Renault’s British F3 team whose star driver in 1999 was Jenson Button – ten years later he would become F1 World Champion.
So if you are one of the tens of thousands of public filing past Silverstone Park’s Innovation Centre on foot to the circuit’s main pedestrian entrance by the Luffield grandstands this weekend, please think again as you look around.
You are in excellent company thanks to the many businesses at Silverstone Park which have contributed in no small part to the magic of F1, both past and present.
Article by Carl McKellar
