Go behind the scenes at McLaren Racing and discover how we’re manufacturing Formula 1 car components out of recycled …
part of McLaren’s racing sustainability strategy is to innovate in circular economy McLaren racing has a history of pioneering in the material space uh we were the first team to incorporate carbon fiber on the car which is a very strong very lightweight material in 2020 we were the first team to use flax biobased fiber as a substitute for carbon fiber on the car and now in our 60th year uh we are using recycled carbon fiber for the first time which is a major breakthrough I was the first driver to race in a seat made out of biobased flex fiber in 2020 and now I get to be at the Forefront of innovation Again by tring recycled carbon fiber on the car in Austin we’re working with an organization called VC Carbon on this they are a Innovative Composites organization that are focused on uh developing new technology to make recycled carbon fiber viable so the reason we’re doing this trial and the reason we’re so excited about it is because it is about showing that this is possible like it is about exploring in what can be done in the manufacturer of a Formula 1 car to make it more sustainable everything has a carbon footprint so when you take a raw material and manufacture it especially something very complex like carbon fiber which has a lot of different components all of those raw materials have to be extracted processed transported there’s energy and fuel that go into all of those things so if you look at a normal piece of carbon fiber if you recycle that piece of carbon fiber you are skipping a lot of those steps which require fire energy and fuel and therefore the Recycled carbon fiber component has a much lower carbon footprint because it’s recycled carbon fiber it could be from a f jet it could be from a road car it could even be from a wind turbine Global demand for carbon fiber is set to double between 2020 and 2025 reaching about 262,000 tons per year if just 1% of that carbon fiber were recycled it would save more than a quarter of f1’s 2019 carbon footprint McLaren racing has an ambitious science based Target to reduce its greenhouse gas footprint by 50% by 2030 and to hit Net Zero by 2040 if you compare a regular carbon fiber part to a recycled one the Recycled part will save about 90% of the emissions so that means we are lowering the carbon footprint of the parts that we’re making by using recycled carbon fiber for them we’re also making incremental progress in the sustainability of our Factory processes we have substituted out the normal vacuum bags we use for biobased vacuum bags which work in the same way they just avoid plastic waste you’ll see them in the manufacturing process they’re the purple ones so this is the first trial of these carb recycled carbon fiber parts we’re using them on non-structural non-safety critical Parts but just to prove that it works to prove that it’s fit to purpose that it is good enough the strength retained in it is high enough to put on a Formula 1 car from experience so far there’s not much difference working between the two materials same processes can be used the same tools and equipment so is easily translatable for us as a team to use this unlocks the potential to use it in other areas of the car considering that the mechanical properties are near enough the same as normal carbon fiber it’s cool to be one of the first people to be working on this project and it’ll be really interesting to see how far it takes us a more circular economy is essential to decarbonizing not only us as McLaren racing but also the sport and Industry more widely so what we really want to do is throw our weight Behind These developing Technologies so that they can scale and develop to the point where they can be used across the Grid it’s incredible to think of the impact such a seemingly Small Change could make to the overall carbon emissions of the sport if it’s used more widely and very exciting to be the team taking the step to try it
