Mercedes and AMG will intensify its work from 2021 F1 season onward as Red Bull Advanced Technologies enter prototype stage with BMC.
Amid speculations of Mercedes pulling out of F1 despite having signed the Concorde Agreement, the investors’ call and conference on Tuesday had, Ola Kallenius, reveal of intense work between the manufacturer and the AMG brand.
As they move towards electrification of their fleet, AMG will act as a sub-brand to the Mercedes F1 team. The relation will grow further from 2021 as the German manufacturer wishes to further utilise its racing to road car technology transfer.
There will be greater range of electric Mercedes cars from brands such as AMG, Maybach, G and EQ. They already have Project One road car, which houses the F1 hybrid turbo. The statement from Daimler AG stated: “AMG is set for the next level with high-performance electrification, starting in 2021.
“Its links with F1 will also intensify next year, to reflect its identity as Mercedes’ high performance sub-brand. Maybach will pursue global opportunities, doubling in size and going electric. The demand for the legendary G is ahead of current capacity. The legend will grow, and will electrify. With the EQ brand, Mercedes-Benz will address a new audience with progressive high-technology products, built on dedicated electric architectures.”
In further use of the Brixworth’s base, where Mercedes develops the F1 hybrid engines, the German manufacturer launched a Vision EQXX technology program. The primary aim of it is to build new range of electric cars with increased efficiency and range.
The team at Stuttgart will be largely supported by specialists from the F1 Mercedes-HPP group based at Brixworth. For now, the Vision EQXX is a technology programme but the expectation is innovation which will make it into series production cars.
Red Bull-BMC partnership:
Apart from the announcements from Mercedes, Red Bull Advanced Technologies also released details of their technology partnership with Swiss bike brand BMC, which enters the prototype stage after couple of years of research work done.
They entered into a partnership in 2018, where Red Bull Technology deployed its F1 expertise to bring innovation into cycling experience. Having utilised its advanced simulation and modelling capability, the Vehicle Science team has developed tools to provide detailed simulations of bike behavior based on data from CFD models.
At the same time, BMC is working with Olympic and World Champion, Fabian Cancellara, to validate and evaluate some of the very first hardware developments enabled from the partnership. “It’s been utterly fascinating to see what F1 development techniques can bring to the field of bike design,” said Christian Horner.
“Together, Red Bull Advanced Technologies and BMC have developed some hugely innovative concepts and now it’s time to step up the pace of our collaboration and take those enormously exciting ideas to the next level in pursuit of the next generation of performance cycling.”
At the same time, David Zurcher, CEO of BMC, added: “We couldn’t be more excited about the progress we’re now seeing, after years of closed-door research. The ideas we’re working on truly have the capacity to significantly improve the entire experience of performance cycling. There’s still work to do, but we’re incredibly energised and motivated by what we’re already seeing. Working alongside the Red Bull Advanced Technology team has been simply phenomenal.”
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