Teams will 3D-print car parts at races in future – Boullier

F1 Fanatic Round-up

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In the round-up: McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says he can “definitely” see a future where teams use 3D-printing to create replacement parts while at races.

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Comment of the day

Is McLaren trying to make Button take a pay cut?
A theory on the Jenson Button situation from @GregKingston:

It sounds a lot more like McLaren are not exercising their option on him, with a much publicised pay increase that takes him to less than 50% of Alonso’s salary, and would instead like to re-sign him afterwards for less. At the same time they’re publicly saying how much they’d him to stay.

Jenson’s clearly been wrestling with a very difficult decision. Few drivers actually get to exit the sport on their terms and walk away from a drive. But he’s closer to the end of his F1 career than the beginning, and the prospect of driving an equally awful car for another year cannot be attractive.

He seems happy though and has reconciled himself with his decision, no matter what that is. As a fan I feel as conflicted as he is – I don’t want him to leave but equally I don’t want to see him lead Manor racing around circuits for another 12 months whilst McLaren try and develop a reasonable car for 2017.
@GregKingston

Happy birthday!

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On this day in F1

Fernando Alonso denied Sebastian Vettel a victory at Singapore on this day five years ago. Mark Webber finished third and held on to the championship lead with the top five covered by 25 points with four races remaining.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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54 comments on “Teams will 3D-print car parts at races in future – Boullier”

  1. to all of those going crazy about the mclaren honda red white livery, can you just go and check the livery on the 1996 car, and the engine it has.

    There you go, the red and white has nothing to do with honda, it is connected with marlboro

    1. I support your rage in this! It’s ok to be mad!

    2. McLaren was originally white and green, just throwing this one. I think Ron just doesn’t want to look like a team desperate for attention or sponsors. The sponsors paint the car full stop.

    3. I’m sure Ron could be tempted anyway once he has a winning car (if ever).

    4. Thank you for setting the matter straight, oh learned one.

  2. Honda not allowing Lotus F1 team to use their hospitality is disgusting.

  3. Im wondering where is hamiltons melancoly comming from?

    1. I just don’t understand Lewis remark “like the colour of our skin” on that post. Wonder what he gonna say if he ever post instagram thankful note about his mother…

      1. Racists generally don’t differentiate between black people and mixed race people, what’s not to understand ?
        Go read any F1 article on the Daily Mail website and you’ll often find plenty of examples of the attitudes Lewis is referring to.

        1. You just made generalization of Racist. An assumption about a group of people based on only a few people. Some of us Racist are intelligent enough to know the difference, you know? :)

          1. @ruliemaulana, Really ? so intelligent that you don’t realize that Lewis’ fathers skin did not become any whiter when he married a fair skinned anglo-saxon woman.

          2. @HoHum Here I was thought adding smiley at the end was enough. Should any joke or sarcasm need full detail disclaimer?

          3. @ruliemaulana, No smiley on the original post, putting your hands up and saying “just joking” doesn’t always cut it.
            Explanation accepted.

          4. @HoHum LoL. You didn’t reply to my original post…

      2. How complicated is it that you can’t understand? When he was a kid there people (even parents of other kids) that thought he had no business racing because he was black and tried to discourage him from staying in the sport.

    2. Again I think he’s depressed.

      1. He may well be worrying about the possibility of suffering the same fate as Jules Bianchi.

        1. Hey I don’t think that’s a nice thought. What I think is, should it be a wet track on raceday drivers will be thinking of Jules even more and the race will be a slow one.

    3. Who’s to know exactly but Lewis? I suppose all that rain limiting track time and the return to the site of Jules Bianchi’s terrible accident gave him cause for introspection.

      It is a nice touch though for him. It’s a change from all the tattoos, private jets and celebrities, which as a Lewis fan I’ve tolerated and just glossed over as of late.

    4. Awww that’s a cute pic.

  4. I’m afraid F1 gonna lost 6 seat in 2016. No Lotus, Red Bull & STR.
    The only logical explanation for Romain to made the deal with Haas is that he knew Renault deal failing.
    Bernie got my sympathies this time for trying hard saving & supporting Enstone team.

    1. ColdFly F1 - @coldfly (@)
      26th September 2015, 8:01

      Would an arsonist handing the victims a leaking bucket of water also get your sympathies?

      1. Yes, if said arsonist was attempting to burn down CVC or Bernie 😉

  5. mmm 3D printed parts on site seems like a great idea but dragging around the machine to every race seems like an even bigger expense than just bring spares of everything.

    What the teams could do instead is share the cost of transporting just one or two “printers” and then just use it in case one of their drivers crashed. But there’s a long way to go before it’s even technically possible anyway.

    1. The idea is to force every race track to provide giant printer facility of FIA chosen Industrial 3D printer manufacture. So all the team only need to transport chassis, engine and sponsor stickers. They can email 3D body parts 3 days before Friday practice to be printed on site.

      1. @rukliemaulana Someone will then take the printer’s data and using that take a look at what other teams are printing….and thus printergate shall be born……

      2. force, that’s a nice approach :-)

    2. It’s impossible to 3d print carbon composites, therefore it would have a very limited use for the short term, next 20 years.

    3. Clearly Boullier’s political acumen lends itself well to F1 as the 3D printing comment highlights. Instead of getting all hot & bothered and letting Whitmarsh go, perhaps Ron should avoir regardé l’autre gars à la place.

    4. According to Renault Trucks Corporate Red Bull Racing is already using 3D printers during the race weekends.

      Normally, there would be nothing unusual about seven articulated lorries carrying seven containers across Europe. Unless the seven containers are ‘parts’ of the Red Bull Tree House, an extended pit lane for the Infiniti Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team. This is also true for the Formula 1 drivers and their cars travelling across Europe from one race weekend to the next. The Tree House is a mobile workshop and office for supporting the Red Bull team at each European race weekend. If you look in the four containers for the mobile workshop, you will see, not only conventional tools such as a lathe and drill press, but also a 3D printer for printing the required parts. During a race, it is important to react quickly. So the Tree House is a logical extension to the Red Bull Box. The remaining three containers are used as a mobile office to accommodate 35 people.

    5. @mantresx, there is some evidence that Red Bull has been using 3D printing to manufacture small replacement components, such as front wing endplates, at the track itself for a couple of years now. However, I don’t think it will be going into widespread use for a number of years yet, mainly because of the difficulty in producing composite materials with the requisite performance properties via 3D printing.

  6. OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! - @omarr-pepper (@)
    26th September 2015, 1:52

    In that The Mirror article, they say Maldo had to shelter from the rain in another team’s hospitality… Doesn’t he have ENOUGH money to rent a bus or 2 and shelter his whole team? I thought PDVSA gave him more money, or that, even if that’s not the case, he would spend some pocket money to accomodate HIS team.
    I know it’s not his responsibility, but come on, this guy has the funds to do it.

    1. What’s getting sponsorshio got to do with getting rich?

      That’s some ridiculous and delusional thinking.

  7. I’d imagine at some point a team will be able to just take a few photos of a rival car, run them through a fancy computer program and 3D-print the whole thing. Maybe not soon, but one day…

  8. Really really strange to see Bernie doing something kind and helping a team. I can’t help but feel he is so desperate for Renault to come in that he is just helping them to survive until then. In any other situation maybe he would’ve let it collapse now?

    1. @strontium I’m sure you are correct, were there a couple more teams running to keep the numbers up Bernie wouldn’t have cared less.

    2. I suppose he knows this is a team that’s necessary for the business, whilst Caterham, Marussia and HRT were mobile chicane pretenders who were hanging on by a thread to begin with

  9. I think any plans made by a major manufacturer of diesel engined cars will, this week, have been put on hold till the dust settles.
    There seems to be a lynch-mob hysteria developing all around the world regarding VWs admission that the very old practice of tuning engines to pass tests for economy, and more recently, emissions has been perfected to the point where it is called cheating.

    1. It’s because they pass at a lesser mileage then they actually really get that raised the ire of the EPA, who then created the hysteria. Most cars go into a type of test mode for efficiency when being tested and then perform at a lower mpg in normal mode. Contrary to others though, the reality is that the TDI gets more mpg than rated without more emissions.

    2. @hohum Was it a coup d’etat then? Apparently the head of Porsche is in charge now.

      1. @peartree, @fast, I think it was more likely the heads of Ford and/or GM, too high a price to pay just to get Porsche back in charge.

        1. @Hohum It’s inane right. Not inconceivable though, Porsche apparently wants independence from VW who has topped worldwide sales this year, so you never know. You said it yourself, VW is being hammered for doing standard practice in the automotive business. On the other hand the story did blew up in the US, so you’re probably right.

          1. @peartree, American car companies have either failed or not bothered trying to penetrate the market with diesel, but VW was on a roll that neither Ford, Chrysler or GM had an answer for, makes me wonder just who was financing that study and why.

    3. sooo, VW engines were just “flexing” their fuel emissions so they could pass scrutiny???

      we can see now why Red Bull wanted them to take over… ;)

      1. @arrows98, exactly the example that came to my mind too.

        1. @HoHum @Peartree Only the Chevrolet Cruze diesel provided any sort of competition for the 2litre TDI. Since the gov’t owns GM courtesy of the 2009 bailout it needs to protect the investment. (@maarten-f1) The Atlantic magazine portrays itself as Liberal yet it is really a right wing outlet. BTW, as compared to the UK and Europe, there really isn’t a Left-wing in the US. Just right of center and then further right.

          1. @fast @maarten-f1, thanks for that but I can’t place much trust in an article that doesn’t know the difference between economy and emissions. I just love it when the good old boys liken Obama to Hitler because the’re both socialists.

  10. ColdFly F1 - @coldfly (@)
    26th September 2015, 7:44

    Interestingly the Pictures in the ‘tweets and pictures’ section do not show in my browser (Chrome OS X).
    Thank you!

  11. Thanks for the birthday shoutout Keith ,
    I still lurk around here in the shadows :)

    Now Australian Tv broadcasts of F1 is half behind a paywall I’ve been watching replays on you tube of just the highlights during the week ,

    I cannot remember when I have missed this many live races ?

    By the way , I was born on the same day
    the Beatles released Abbey Road ,
    26-9-69

  12. Maybe McLaren/Honda can 3D print a better car & engine?

Comments are closed.