Formula 1 …On The Future Of Car Tech

F1’s technical director tells us about the latest tech in track cars that will trickle down to our own, less-spectacular, road-going vehicles

F1 technical director Pat Symonds has seen a lot of changes in motor racing during the course of his many years in the business. Safety has been one of the biggest areas of improvement, but as we are often reminded, motor sport is still very dangerous. Accidents can and do happen, although each time something tragic happens there is always something that can be learnt from it. Symonds has also been instrumental in attempting to level the playing field with new regulations and a budget cap on the building of F1 cars due for 2020. Ultimately, though, Symonds thinks there is plenty that has filtered from the wild world of F1 down through to our everyday production cars.

Symonds, now in his 60s, is still hugely passionate about motor racing and the engineering behind it. Having studied at Cranfield University, where he secured a master’s degree in aerodynamics, it’s the how and why things work part of the equation that fuels his fascination in the sport. That passion has seen him work his way up to chief technical officer at Williams Grand Prix Engineering with stints at the Benetton, Renault and Virgin Formula 1 teams prior to that, before joining F1 itself in 2016. But despite the high-profile managerial positions, it’s engineering that joins all of those illustrious career-path dots together.

What aspects of F1 have filtered down to production cars over the years?

Lots of things, particularly in the energy recovery field; batteries and battery management systems. Battery management has become a very big topic in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles. When we started working on them in the mid-2000s, Formula One was streets ahead of where the current hybrid cars are. I think we’ve made major contributions there. We look for efficiency. And a lot of that efficiency, we can roll back into many, many industries.

What has motorsport brought to the road car?