© Renault
THE CHALLENGE OF GROWING…
In accordance with its long-term growth plan intended to take it back to the front of the grid, Renault has been expanding significantly on all fronts, boosting its resources and personnel. But adding people to its Design Office isn't without its challenges
“Communication is still good, because it is an open space,” says Maria Baerthel.
“The downs with a big office is that our tasks get smaller and smaller. In a small company, I would do the stress analysis and the part, whereas here I just draw the parts and give all the stress analysis to the stress department that most of the time supply us with the laminates.
…WHILE MOTIVATING THE TROOPS
“Fortunately at Renault, we get to work on different components and not just do the same component over and over again, just because it is fast.
“If I have done this part, I know where the moulds, the patterns are. I know to whom to speak, I know why we have drawn that hole 5 millimetres up or down, whereas if I move to another part, I need to read the regulations, I need to find out what we have done last year, where the layers are, etc.
“Now, I’m working on the torsion beam that is only there so that we don’t run the car too low.
“The FIA controls that we don’t run the car too low. That is an interesting part to draw because you don’t just get a surface from aero, there is a little bit of mechanical design.”
To design the 14,500 components of the RS19, Maria and her colleagues will have spent almost 150,000 hours in front of their screens and produced 19,000 CAD drawings.
In Formula 1, the race also includes the good people at the Design Office.
