[h=2]Silverstone: Visit 'F1 Valley'[/h]Since WWII Britain has lost over 50 auto company brands, some people said it was poor management, others the unions fault, while some buyers said they were rusty before leaving the showroom and the reason the English drank warm beer was because the instrument manufacturers made fridges like their instruments. They did not work either! And this is the country that brought about the industrial revolution 150 years before.


Well the area around Silverstone is changing things, 25 years or so from now we will see a totally different picture. The word is passion, and the answer is Formula 1, and the reason is passionate engineers. When you see teams with up to 600 employees with twenty grands prix a year, when they had only 50 employees a few years ago, you get incredible groups of specialists.
There are big spinoffs. McLaren produce a whole range of products including the wonderful sports cars under Ron Dennis's regime. Red Bull are working with Aston Martin, TAG is in the wings (excuse the pun) helping finance an engine not named Renault. Williams with BMW and Jaguar over the years and have several licensed products including an electric flywheel, aerodynamic golf clubs, and batteries for Formula E. It teaches young engineers modern techniques, allows them to develop new ideas and maybe start their own auto company when the opportunity presents itself. When there are so many engineers with special skills, things develop fast. In this area there is a whole cottage industry building parts for F1 and they will develop into producing parts for regular cars.


It's why we fans love Formula 1. The teams get faster every year by maybe a second or two a lap. Listening to drivers and engineers talk about their experiences at one of our cocktail parties often puts it all into perspective. Not everyone can become a racing driver, they are born to it. It's not just exceptional eyesight, balance, physical condition, or being born with a world champion fathers genes, or the ability to be wanted to represent a large brand due to their good looks and personality. There is also the ability to motivate his engineers, the need to win and a passion that starts as a child in go-carts. Many drivers will know all the families of their team, their children's names and birthday, anniversaries; to the extent the team members idolize the driver. Memory is a big part of a drivers skill set. I remember Phil Hill's daughter Vanessa, just after Phil's 60th birthday party telling me he could remember every birthday party he had had after five years.


I've been lucky to be part of Grand Prix Tours over the years and able to develop and attend our cocktail parties. I remember an engineer/owner telling me he had developed helicopters before setting up a team, when he got an idea it may take six months to build and four years to get it into production. By contrast, he thought about a change to the rear wing of the F1 car the day he left for the race. The factory built a new wing and got it to the team in two days. They tested it on Friday's practice......