Pure F1 competence at Munich

At the Munich site of the BMW Sauber F1 Team, 300 employees from a wide range of departments are involved in BMW's Formula One venture. We have a look behind the scenes. Anton-Ditt-Bogen is the road where the pulse of the project beats. It is the home of BMW Motorsport.

Here, in the north of Munich, is where the Formula One engines are developed, tested and built. The latest expansion phase saw state-of-the-art test rigs and laboratories introduced at the end of 2005. It also allows transmission development to be based in Munich.

Formula One component manufacturing occupies a building of its own, along with the attached quality control department. Thanks to the electronic systems also being developed and manufactured here, the entire powertrain is integrated in a single location.

The road in this industrial district is also home to numerous offices, including those of BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen and Heinz Paschen, the Technical Director responsibel for the entire powertrain. The Sponsoring and Business Relations division is also based here, and the logistics department is run from the same site. Any motor racing fan would regard the materials warehouse as an Aladdin's cave - it houses the clothes depot with the gear worn by the F1 crew, as well as a wide range of exhibits.

Knorrstrasse in Munich is home to the BMW Forschungs- und Innovationszentrum (BMW Research and Innovation Centre), or FIZ for short. For the Formula One engineers it is just a few hundred yards to the FIZ specialists for face-to-face consultations on material analysis or rapid prototyping. Landshut, around an hour's driver northeast of Munich, is where the Formula One foundry is located, next-door to its series production counterpart.

Related newsarticles: http://www.f1technical.net/news/2510