Remember me

Formula 1's Horner raises the bar

Posted on 30 May 2008

Join this Network

Please login or register to join this Network.

Search for contacts

Use the contacts search within MyIET to locate and send messages to other professionals.





Matthew Poole

This year's Lord Austin lecture and dinner received exceptional attendance and praise. Christian Horner, team principal from Red Bull Racing, captivated the audience with informative and entertaining anecdotes from his illustrious career. 

"It was one of the best IET evenings that I have attended...The bar has been raised significantly since last year." - Mike Hayward, Logica

"Thank you for putting on such an excellent event yesterday evening" - David Knight, Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP

The lecture: F1 technology - performing beyond the circuit

Formula One technology is widely recognised as being cutting edge. In a lot of respects, this is true. However, there are many aspects of the business that are very basic, albeit carefully executed in a controlled way. Formula One teams, like most successful technology companies, are frugal with the deployment of their resources.

The effort is very carefully focussed towards business objects, the most important of which is, by far, success on the track. A team will not embark upon a technology project unless it is likely to offer benefits in car performance, business economy, or reduced time scales. 

For that reason, and contrary to most popular beliefs, any technology benefits that transfer from a Formula One team to mainstream manufacturing are incidental to the primary aim of making the car more competitive. Or are they? And are they quite so obvious as you might first expect?

The Lord Austin Lecture and Dinner forms part of the IET’s yearly programme of special named lectures.

Charity raffle 

The charity raffle, held in conjunction with the Lord Austin Lecture, raised £665 for Wings for Life and BEN. The prizes of David Coulthard’s and Mark Webber’s signed race suits were won by John Murdoch of Maidstone, Kent, and Anuj Mitra of Bracknell, Berkshire.

Categories: ,

Comments

All comments

You need to be registered with the IET to leave a comment. Please log in or register as a new user.

Toolbox

Comment on this article

Blog categories

Recent posts