How We’re Building the F1 Campus of the Future

"The plans that have been recently communicated are just the next phase of a large programme that's been running now for at least four years."

So says Rob Thomas, Chief Operating Officer here at the Team. It’s an exciting time at Brackley. Whilst we’re all looking forward to the second half of the season, there’s a longer-term focus too.

Our site is undergoing a transformation as we build the F1 campus of the future. You can read about the recently announced plans in much more detail here.

Let’s get a short overview of though from Rob on what we’re looking to do: “The work we have done already over the last four years has focused mainly on the manufacturing and design areas. We've completely redeveloped the machine shop, the composite and the built areas and a lot of the offices. Our focus now moves to some of the outside areas. We are going to build a brand-new building to house a gym, a restaurant and general wellbeing centre. At the front of the site, we are going to build another new building which will house marketing, finance, commercial and create something that is truly impressive when you drive onto the site.”

How does that equate to helping us achieve our objectives of winning world championships? Rob continues: “Ultimately, it's focused on our people as that's where all of our ideas come from. It’s about building a facility where people are happy to come to work, they have got areas where they can think, and areas where they can exercise. This generates new ideas and ultimately these ideas turn into lap time.”

And these new developments will also provide some other benefits. Mike Elliott, Chief Technical Officer, explains: “Formula One has marched forward in time and grown. The buildings at Brackley have grown with us and we’ve adapted them to what we've got. These developments are going to provide an opportunity to improve spaces where our engineers work. We will be able to develop more breakout spaces, better meeting rooms, and improve the ability to collaborate.

"These things might seem small but giving our people the best places to work in is what we need to do. It’s a constant quest to improve, both the facilities we’ve got and the capabilities of our people. That will lead to us producing a better product and give us a better chance of winning races and world championships."

There is one more key factor to consider: sustainability. “The new campus developments are important for the team's sustainability ambitions to become the world's most sustainable professional sports team. We're going to be able to not only reduce our emissions, but reduce our resource consumption, which is critical as we move forward," says Alice Ashpitel, the Team's Head of Sustainability.

Alice continues: "The two new buildings that we are designing will be net zero in operation and they will also be backed by 100 percent renewable energy both onsite and offsite. Onsite generation is really important because it will allow us to have our own secure renewable supply of solar panels powering some of the site activities. This ensures that we are adding capacity to the national grid and ensuring that renewable supplies are growing in the UK."

An exciting time then as we look to build the Formula 1 campus of the future. Find out the full story by watching our latest video below.

It’s a constant quest to improve, both the facilities we’ve got and the capabilities of our people.

Mike Elliott