Inside Honda F1

It’s hard to explain what the inside of a Formula 1 team’s headquarters looks like, but I will do my very best. In all fairness a Formula 1 team headquarters isn’t exactly a race shop, its not exactly a NASA workshop either, perhaps a cross of these two things with a high tech medical lab thrown in for flavor is the best way to describe an F1 teams headquarter.

Last week I had the chance to not only visit one of these facilities, but also to go inside the heart of the engineering section and see what goes on behind the closed doors at a Formula 1 teams racing facilities. The team I had the chance to visit was Honda Formula 1 team which is based near Silverstone in the United Kingdom Midlands. When approaching the facility from the motorway you won’t realize you are approaching it, and unless you know where to look it would be quite easy to pass by. That is of course, unless you know what you are looking for, then the industrial estate, transformed racing stratofortress is impossible to miss.

The purpose for my visit was to return a misplaced intercom system which had went missing a few weeks earlier at PalmerSport. One of the Honda’s F1 engineers had came to our facility and had been doing a driver evaluation for an F3 driver they are considering for their development program. As one of the ‘new’ instructors on the beat, I was asked if I could drive halfway across England and return the misplaced intercom (a half hour drive).

I was more than happy to make the trip and take the opportunity to see inside the Honda workshop. When I arrived on the scene I parked outside the perimeter of the facility and was instructed by the security officer to “head in, cross the bridge (you have a bridge at your raceshop?), past the lake, and go into building on your right.”

As I headed down the road with intercom in hand I had a chance to see some of the various buildings on site. There must have been six or seven large buildings, one appeared to have a Formula 1 car hanging from the ceiling, a nice bit of decorate kit I think.

Once I walked into the primary Honda engineering building I was greeted by a secretary who had a lanyard with my name already printed on it. I was met by the engineer who offered to show me around the facility. As we walked inside the medical laboratory feel became evident, everything was painfully clean, I felt as if I should clean my shoes! At this point the photography stopped for obvious reasons.

The first thing we came to was a primary engineering room. There were probably fifty members of the Honda team in the open office. The room was comprised of work stations where computer monitors faced outwards from the center creating a very ‘open’ work environment. We didn’t go into the room but I could see cad schematics lining the screens which were facing the hallway. As we rounded a corner we headed downstairs to a bay containing the teams test cars, the engineer explained to me they used the 2007 race models.

Beyond the test team bays there were two autoclaves in an open shop area, machines used for baking and putting a vacuum on carbon fiber components. The first autoclave was massive, perhaps 8 feet in height by ten feet long which could house an entire Formula 1 cars chassis. The second was smaller for aero components, suspension pieces, and other miscellaneous pieces. In the room beyond the area housing the autoclaves was a machine which cut the carbon fiber fabric before it went into the autoclaves.

The engineer then brought me to a room which housed the teams SEVEN CNC machines. The CNC machines can cut a chunk of metal, either aluminum, steel, titanium, or something even more exotic into almost any imaginable shape. These shapes are used as hubs, gearbox components, and other parts around the racing car. Between the CNC machine and the carbon fiber capacity the Honda team has the ability to engineer and create a completely new working part in less than three weeks.

At this point the engineer had to excuse himself and brought me back to the reception area. The tour through the Honda formula 1 facility was fantastic, although it was only a short tour it was really cool to see first hand the technology and resources which go towards engineering, building, and preparing a working modern formula 1 car!