Williams, the first eco-friendly Formula 1 team?

The Williams Formula 1 team announced this weekend the acquisition of a stake in the company Automotive Hybrid Power Limited. This English company develops new clean technologies to recover energy during braking, among other things.

Williams made this investment with the aim of creating its KERS system as soon as possible, which will be mandatory next season in Formula 1. This system is designed to recover all unused energy during the operation of the race car.

The company is currently developing a system that saves energy through the inertia of the wheels, among other things, but the projects also involve mini-batteries to store unused energy during the race.

The system is based on an axis, rotating at more than 100,000 rotations per minute, allowing the energy to be redistributed later.

« Inertia technology is one of the most demanding fields of automotive engineering », says Patrick Head, the co-owner of Williams.

« We are completely in sync with the FIA for the implementation of such an energy recovery system. We hope that these innovations will later be used on our everyday cars to preserve our environment. »

The company, more than 50% of which was purchased for Sir Frank Williams’ team, was at the same time renamed Williams ‘Hybrid Power Limited.’ It was then a subsidiary of the Automotive group, the world’s largest manufacturer of airbags and security systems.

« With this company, we hope to implement our inertia technologies as soon as possible. We will also take advantage of the increased visibility that Formula 1 offers us to quickly market a product », comments Ian Foley, Managing Director of Williams Hybrid Power Limited.