Press Release
BMW Formula One Technology Cast in One Mold
Related content:
- The Landshut Formula One foundry serving as BMW's competence
and prototyping center.
- Maximum change flexibility plus maximum quality.
- In-house process skills and competence.
- Technology transfer from motorsport to series production and vice versa.
- Rapid prototyping technology for short development times.
Rapid action and precision are the name of the game in Formula One
And indeed, this applies not only to the driver on the race track, but also to everybody involved behind the scenes ensuring the success of the BMW WilliamsF1 Team. The BMW V10 power units featured in the white-and-blue Formula One racing cars acknowledged to be among the best performers in the scene are subject to an ongoing process of change and improvement. For only the manufacturer with the right skills and a high standard of flexibility is ultimately in a position to use even the smallest potentials and compete successfully with the very best.
Networked in-house competence for greater synergies
In consideration of this great challenge, the BMW Group built a Sand-Casting Technology Center, a highly specialized foundry for F1 engine components, at the Landshut Plant in the year 2000, directly next to the light-alloy foundry for the cylinder heads and crankcases featured in BMW's regular production engines. Just 65 kilometers from BMW Motorsport in Munich, BMW's casting specialists benefit from ideal conditions in making the power units starring in the WilliamsF1 BMW FW 25 the most powerful machines in Formula One.
Apart from crankcases and cylinder heads for BMW's V10 power unit, the Landshut Technology Center also builds test parts and components, the foundry also serving as the prototype production facility for developing components for the BMW Group's future series production engines. The Sand-Casting Technology Center is manned by an in-house team of specialists coming exclusively from the light-alloy foundry. Given the small number of components and the flexibility required in making changes, experience and craftsmanship are of course an absolute must. The foundry team at BMW's Landshut Plant is closely involved in the process of developing new power units both for BMW Motorsport and for series production.
With the entire process chain from model construction through casting all the way to quality tests coming under one roof, the team is able to respond flexibly and quickly to changes and new requirements. Precisely this is why the Sand-Casting Technical Center has its own model-building department complete with CAD facilities modifying or building moulds for sand cores. Perfectly coordinated change and quality management in processes and the proximity to BMW Motorsport in Munich even allow the modification of parts and components between two races.
We never take "No" for an answer
Without losing sight of the need for optimum precision, the foundry team makes the impossible possible every day together with the engine development specialists. And this is absolutely essential, considering that racing engine technology has in the meantime been developed to such an extreme that modifications are only possible with decades of experience provided by specialists in production as well as trendsetting processes and tools. Benefiting from such knowledge and facilities, the foundry specialists in Landshut are able time and again to redefine the limits to casting technology, turning out parts and components with a standard of quality and complexity never seen before.
Although the crankcase and the two separate cylinder heads are only three out of some 5,000 individual parts that make up an F1 power unit, no other single component in a car involves a more painstaking development process and requires greater competence in process technology.
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Photo Captions:
Top: BMW V10 motor (P82) for Formula One World Championship Bottom: Juan Pablo Montoya WilliamsF1 BMW FW25
