It turns out that building a winning machine and developing the team to go with it is quite expensive. The benefits are many, and winning isn’t the only way companies can get value from motorsports.
Have you ever wondered how much money it costs to develop and maintain a racing team? Probably not, and I can’t blame you… but it turns out that building a winning machine and developing the team to go with it is quite expensive. When it comes to quite expensive, we are talking tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars per year, depending on the series.
Last summer I traveled to Europe and visited several car-themed destinations in Germany, Belgium and Italy. I’ve discussed this another message in more detail, but for this the focus is on one thing: technology. More specifically, the technical and organizational benefits that companies gain from building and maintaining a racing team.
Racing is a great mania to which you must sacrifice everything, without restraint and without hesitation. -Enzo Ferrari
The steering wheel
Steering wheels have evolved since the early days and now have buttons for media controls, driving modes, shifting and countless other somewhat pointless functions (has the voice command system in your car ever worked?) that can at least keep the driver entertained. Advances in motorsport steering wheels, which have evolved into complex interfaces with multiple controls to improve vehicle performance, have had a trickle-down effect on passenger cars. The less time drivers have their hands off the wheel, the more they can drive the car. Our applications differ from those of drivers, but the idea is the same.
Here’s a collection of photos of some wheels over the years, note the lack of buttons or even an airbag in the first one, and then a horn button in (what I think is) a Lamborghini Murcielago, and then buttons for literally everything whatever you can think of (including a useless voice assistant that responds when someone mentions the word Mercedes).
Brakes and four-wheel drive
Motorsports has also developed advanced braking technology over the years thanks to adrenaline-crazed drivers. Drilled and slotted discs for sports cars and carbon ceramic brake discs for supercars all come from the development of motorsport. Audi invented their Quattro all-wheel drive for enthusiasts and rally drivers, but revolutionized their product range with permanent all-wheel drive, sparking a boom in AWD cars around the world.
The origins of quattro technology date back to the winter of 1976-77, when a group of Audi engineers conducted test drives in the deep snow of Sweden. -Audi
Electric powertrain technology
This is a big one. Electric powertrain technology has advanced thanks to both Formula 1 and Formula E (other racing series have helped too, but F1 and FE are the highlights here). Formula E is a racing competition for pure electric cars and fills a unique niche that has become increasingly important since the competition’s inception in 2014. It’s not nearly as popular as NASCAR, IndyCar or F1, but it’s a good development sandbox for engineers in anyway.
Formula 1 has also been using hybrid technology since the V6 replaced the V8 in its cars in 2014. More specifically, the 48-volt mild hybrid system that Mercedes-Benz uses on their current models comes from the F1 cars that use a similar system to increase acceleration at the right times. This technology provides more torque and horsepower, as well as greater efficiency. Another specific example is KERS, which stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery System and was introduced into F1 in 2009 to improve acceleration and fuel consumption. At the French 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2012, a car equipped with KERS took part in the race and dominated the competition. As of 2024, some ICE motorcycles and passenger cars have adopted the technology, but it is much more popular with electric vehicles.
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Left: Formula 1 car in Mercedes Museum, Right: Porsche Formula E car at the Porsche Museum (both in Stuttgart)
Brands born in motorsport
Ferrari started thanks to someone who loved racing. The name Mercedes came about because a man liked to race Daimler cars and the name of his racing team was Mercedes (named after his daughter). Lamborghini only exists because Enzo is good at pissing people off, and Porsche throughout its history has sold cars on Mondays thanks to Sunday wins. The early racing success made the Porsche name legitimate… because before that it was the same as any other old boutique manufacturer.
I am someone who dreamed of being Ferrari, the first contact with speed, the experience of the track, the vision of the future. -Enzo Ferrari
Enzo always believed that racing could drive technical evolution for his then small company in a picturesque northern Italian town. That ideology seems to be paying off, as Ferrari is still on the move and has just completed a record year of 2023, in which the company shipped more than thirteen thousand vehicles. The introduction of the four-door SUV Purosangue was a big hit on the global market, as were the deliveries of the 296, SF90 and Roma Spider.
Ferrari is still putting their money where their mouth is… after spending $463 million on their Formula 1 efforts in 2019 (2023 data wasn’t immediately available when I searched). Mercedes also spent approximately $484 million on their F1 efforts that year.
All four of these companies came into existence largely thanks to motorsport.
Story of Mercedes Jellinek
Have you thought about where the name “Mercedes” comes from? Daimler was the surname of an early automobile inventor, and so was Benz. What does Mercedes mean?
Mercedes was the name of a rather unremarkable Spanish girl born in 1889. Her father, Emil Jellinek, was a successful businessman, Austrian consul general and avid sportsman. Emil was enthusiastic about the dawn of the automobile and in 1897 he visited the Daimler factory in Cannstatt and ordered his first car. Being an adrenaline seeker, he took part in races with these cars under the pseudonym “Mercedes”, after his daughter. In time he won a victory, and another, and another. People in town are starting to say, “Did you hear Mercedes got another win?” In June 1903, after many racing successes, Emil Jellinek was given permission to call himself Jellinek-Mercedes (commitment, right?).
Although Mercedes did not share her father’s passion for cars, her name has survived for more than a century, with or without her consent, and is the name of one of the world’s most innovative and valuable companies. Pretty good.
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