Ambassador visit to Honda Racing F1

35 Northamptonshire Ambassadors visited Honda Racing F1 in November to explore the importance of motorsport and high performance engineering within Northamptonshire.

 

Nick Fry, CEO of Honda F1 hosted a breakfast meeting, giving the Ambassadors an important insight into this industry

 

Motorsport and high performance engineering (HPE) sigificantly contribute to the local economy with 00 major motor sport companies in the county employing over 6,000 people with an annual turnover of £0.6 billion. In addition there are a further 450 other HPE companies in the county employing over 10,400 employees.

 

Northamptonshire has four internationally recognised engine producers in Cosworth, Mahle Powertrain, Ilmor Engineering and Mercedes-Benz HPE, and four international racing teams- A1GP, ADR, Fortec and Promatecme, with world class racing schools at Silverstone and Rockingham.

 

Northamptonshire has the highest quality and widest breadth of venue provision in the UK with venues including Silverstone, Rockingham, Santa Pd, Northampton International Raceway and Whilton Mill Kart Circuit.

 

The National College for Motorsport is also based at two sites in Northamptonshire (Corby and Silverstone) and is helping train tomorrow's F1 engineers.

 

The Ambassadors were also given a privileged insight into the manufacturing f F1 cars, with a tour around Honda F1's world-class facility based in Brackley.

 

Since our visit, we have all been shocked to hear of Honda's plan to pull out of F1 and to put its fantastic facility at Brackley up for sale. We are supporting Nick Fry and his team in their efforts to find a new owner within the next few weeks, and we share their confidence that the concentration of world-class technology and skills in Brackley, combined with a car that is so well primed to perform in 2009, will result in a new owner being found.