The Universities and Science Minister David Willetts launched a £1,000,000 competition earlier this year to help small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) drive motorsport technologies around the world.
In a step intending to stimulate the industry, technology Strategy Board’s latest ‘Launchpad’ competition gave UK businesses working as part of England’s Motorsport Valley, around Oxfordshire and the surrounding counties, the chance to compete for funding.
New Investment
The investment will allow businesses to develop new energy and emission efficient technologies that could be transferred into the pit lanes of famous races such as the Monaco Grand Prix.
The ‘Launchpad’ competition was launched at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, with Universities and Science Minister David Willetts commenting that ‘The Motorsport Valley business cluster is a hotbed for innovation and a key driver for growth in the UK.’ Adding that ‘over 3,500 business employing around 40,000 people’ generati global sales in the area of 7 billion.
One of the winners
One of the winners of share of around £100,000 worth of funding is a Juno Racing Cars and EPM Technology collaboration. To combat increasing fuel costs and increasing environmental concerns, they have engineering the concept of vehicle “light-weighting.”
This offers added fuel efficiency by providing an reduction in vehicle inertia – less energy required to speed up, slow down or change direction. ‘Affordable Structural Composites’
The project aims to develop innovative manufacturing processes to make advanced composite structures a commercially viable choice for a new evolution of Juno’s successful sports prototype racing car. These plans are intended to be transformed into a road-legal track-day car in the future. As is often the case, it is likely that motorsport developments will enable such technology to trickle down into the mainstream of the motor industry in time.
To find out who else won a selection of this £1,000,000 worth of funding, click here for the full winners list.
Motorsport Insurance
We provide bespoke insurance coverage to the motorsport industry. Our wealth of experience over the motorsport world means we have experience in dealing with the entire canon of motorsport entities, like National Federations and Associations, Circuit operators, Events, Stadiums, Clubs, Teams, Equipment/Component Manufacturers, Promoters and Sponsors.
Projects like this can push the technology for motorsport forward – helping to develop further and assist a growing a important UK industry.
