The Institution's Singapore Branch hosts exclusive F1 technical talk

Graeme Lowdon, CEO of the Marussia Formula One leads a technical talk hosted by the Institution’s Singapore Branch

On 17 Sep 2014 the Institution’s Singapore Branch hosted an exclusive Formula 1 technical talk with Graeme Lowdon, CEO of the Marussia Formula 1. The event, which was held at  main National Library in Singapore, was very well attended with about 70 IMechE members participating  The title of the talk was “FORMULA 1.101 – Engineering” and presented details on engineering a Formula One™ car, including design principles, aerodynamics, tyre and engine technologies. The talk was then followed by a Question and Answer session.

Graeme give attendees the challenges and 'excitement' of running a F1 team with the ever changing rules. It currently costs US$100million just to put a team together and have a stock standard F1 car to just show up at the back of the grid. Interestingly, racing in Singapore, they still keep to UK time which means they wake up at 3pm and have breakfast at 4pm. For 2014, they now use 100kg of fuel per race compared to 170kg in previous years with still have very close timings. The team works at an unceasing pace just to keep up given their small operating budget.

Dr John Heng, Chairman of the IMechE Singapore Branch stated as an afternote:  “It was most unfortunate that in the 2 weeks after the Singapore GP at the Japanese GP, their driver Jules Bianchi was involved in a horrible crash and is still in a bad state in hospital. We pray for his recovery and better fortunes for Team Marussia”

You can read more about the Singapore Branch's activities and events on their NearYou site.