Epson provides winning designs for Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport

The design of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 car is key to ensuring a winning performance on track. The multi-function Epson SureColor T5200, with high precision colour processing for CAD design plays a crucial part in this process

The race-day performance of a Formula 1 car is determined at the design stage. The design process works to enhance a car’s strengths and eliminate weaknesses, all with the goal of developing the finest machine in the world. Over 300 designers, aerodynamicist and machinists worked on creating the 2017 FW08 EQ Power+ Hybrid car which Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport Drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, will push to the extreme in a bid to secure the team’s fourth consecutive World Championship.

With the team in Brackley working around the clock to ensure the car was track ready for pre-season testing in Barcelona, their IT equipment needed to do the same, delivering round the clock efficiency, performance and reliability over the 250,000+ hours spent designing the famous Silver Arrows.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport needed high quality, detailed, large scale colour CAD drawings of the car and its components, to reference during each stage of the design process. The Epson SureColor T5200  was able to provide this and more.

Matt Harris, Head of IT at Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, comments that a key requirement of the design process is to print, scan and copy in colour.

“With the Epson SureColor T5200 the design team are now able to print in colour, giving more definition to their drawings, rather than just relying on line thickness to identify key elements. This enables the engineers to tell the difference between dimensions and tolerance, or highlight different sections of the car.”

“The bright colours and crisp lines delivered by the Epson SureColor T5200 can make an area pop out, rather than just fade into the background. This has proved vital in our car and design decision making process.”

“The combined copy functionality is also one of the most important factors as to why we use the Epson SureColor T5200. The ability to scan and copy up to AO means we can quickly reproduce designs without asking for valuable time from the designers.”

“Our engineers and design team have to have confidence in what they're looking at and measuring, so there can be no distortion, the prints need to be 100% accurate. The two Epson SureColor T5200 can now guarantee this and have provided a big improvement across the business'”.