Ford Performance has been working on developing a brand new power unit set to be utilized by the highly-successful Oracle Red Bull Formula 1 team starting in the 2026 season, which is a move ripe with both risk and potentially huge rewards for both entities. FoMoCo is quite involved in that particular process, in fact, even contributing a bit more than originally planned. Now, it seems as if Ford Performance is leaning on a technology that The Blue Oval has embraced in recent years to further those efforts as well – 3D printing.
Ford Performance and Red Bull are already testing this new power unit, and interestingly, they’re also relying on some methods used in the aerospace industry, as well as creating 3D-printed parts in rapid fashion. Thus far, Ford Performance Motorsports Powertrain Manager Christian Hertrich estimates that the brand has already created around 1,000 parts for the Red Bull F1 team, noting that “It’s not things like nuts and bolts and easy stuff” – but rather, “complex metal and polymer parts that get tested to extremes so they can withstand races that average 200 miles an hour.”
Ford’s manufacturing technology development team member Keith Ferrell is leading the way in these 3D-printing efforts, and notes that the endeavor allows the automaker to print parts that can’t be made using traditional methods – including cold plates for batteries and cooling plates for other parts, with components utilized in both the internal combustion engine and hybrid system of the new power unit. Each part is then tested for strength, hardness, and geometric compliance, using X-rays and CT scans. “We’re pulling in all of these Ford teams with all of these areas of expertise to help in the program,” Ferrell said. “It’s not just the motorsport group working on this. It’s amazing to see how many different areas of the company have already been involved.”
Ford has been harnessing this type of technology for years now, and for a similarly broad range of applications. That includes remaking Beaux Arts-style elements in Michigan Central Station that were damaged, printing parts at the Valencia Assembly plant in Spain and the Cologne Assembly plant in Germany, plus the Sharonville Transmission plant in Ohio, where that process is thus far proving to be a big money saver.
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