Sunday, October 22, 2017

Brexit: UK Motorsport Hitting the Skids?

Lewis Hamilton could soon make it 10 years in a row that the Formula One championship has been won by cars designed, engineered and built in Britain but that success is now being threatened by Brexit. While seven of the 10 F1 teams are based in the UK, four of them have no significant need to stay there.

Britain may lead the world in motorsport but the industry relies on moving people and goods across borders quickly to meet hectic broadcasting schedules.

A series finale of BBC’s Top Gear in 2013 asked car manufacturers to provide an example of a vehicle they produce in the UK and the results filled The Mall, with Union flags lining the route and Royal Guards on horseback adding to the rather satirised jingoism. The motors spanned the industry from nostalgic Morgans to land speed record-breaking cars and, crucially, Formula One.

“A lot of people say that today Britain is nothing more than a bank or a boutique or a busted flush,” said presenter Jeremy Clarkson. “But looking at that staggering collection there I’m not sure they’re right.” Just four years later anyone watching one of the inevitable repeats on Dave might feel a crushing anxiety.

Motorsport Valley

motorsportA collection of leading motorsport firms are grouped in Oxfordshire and the Midlands as “Motorsport Valley” with the industry claiming an annual turnover of £9bn and more than 40,000 employees.

Crucially, 87% of those 4,300 firms export their products or services worldwide, so they are highly vulnerable to any post-Brexit trade restrictions and tariffs.

The impact would not just be economic as the technologies that flow on from motorsport innovation benefit not just the consumer car industry but also aerospace, defence and health.

“The technologies being pioneered in Formula 1 have seen fuel efficiency improvements to levels which just two years ago were thought to be science fiction,” says motorsport expert Sam Collins. “These will be applied to mass market cars around the world reducing CO2 emissions and all of these innovations are British.” He warned that while world-leading component manufacturers are based in the UK any restrictions on trade will likely see their crown passed to French and Italian rivals.

Skills Shortage

motorsportThe UK industry is also facing a growing skills shortage with the talent pool that attracted these companies rapidly drying up. Some 39% of motorsport companies report recruitment difficulties and skills shortages.

“Although we are flooded with applications the calibre of the majority is just not up to standard,” says Tim Holloway, head of engineering at Jordan. “As a result it is difficult to recruit the right people at every level,”

It is not clear exactly how many EU workers are in the UK motorsport workforce but the anecdotal evidence suggests they are important and their ability to fill the increasing gaps in skills with experience from abroad is under threat.

“We do employ a lot of Europeans, particularly in aerodynamics – there seems to be a very strong contingent from France,” said Williams’s then-chief technical officer Pat Symonds at a press conference last year ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix. “I hope that we still maintain relative ease of employing Europeans. It’s already very difficult to employ non-Europeans in the UK, in my opinion far too difficult. So I hope things don’t get any worse.”

by Stewart Vickers

The post Brexit: UK Motorsport Hitting the Skids? appeared first on Felix Magazine.

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