Formula One teams have been expanding to create road car facilities and development centers. After Ferrari and McLaren, the latest one to enter in the road car facilities and development centers is William Grand Prix Engineering.
UK prime minister David Cameron officially opened Williams’ new Advanced Engineering facility, as the F1 team underlined the progress of its offshoot business. The 3800m/sq building, located on the same site as the Williams Martini Racing team, which is result of £8m investment by Williams over the last two years.
The facility will features a ground floor workshop, with F1-inspired build bays, which can be used for one-off projects or low-volume production. The facility will accommodate up to 250 design engineers and also features a number of confidential rooms where projects can be worked on in complete secrecy.
Expressing his views on the new facility, Williams group CEO Mike O’Driscoll said, “This new state-of-the-art building gives our talented and diverse skills base a home and provides capacity for 250 designers, engineers and technicians, Williams’ diversification programme has achieved much over the past few years and from here I expect Williams Advanced Engineering to make rapid progress. Improving energy efficiency is an important global concern and we are confident that Williams has the unique know-how and resources to play an important role in tackling this issue.”
The business has been operating since 2011. Its first project was the Jaguar C-X75 hybrid supercar. The company is also collaborating with Nissan on its high-performance NISMO products, and is the sole supplier of the batteries that will power the cars competing in Formula E, the world’s first fully electric racing series.
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