Strong, light, and able to enhance the safety of drivers, carbon fiber has been a game-changer in Formula One racing. As companies focus more on the environment, designers are searching for new alternative materials that can provide these benefits in a more sustainable and less costly manner. Bcomp and McLaren have developed a seat made with flax fiber that provides the necessary stiffness and strength while emitting a 75% lower CO2 footprint compared to the same part designed from carbon fiber.
The structure of flax fibers offers low density and high stiffness while being lightweight, key aspects to improved vibration damping, strength, torsion, and compression, all critical to speed and safety in Formula One race cars.
The new seat design is based on carbon fiber seats used in the past. Bcomp CEO and co-founder Christian Fischer explained, “The original carbon fiber seat design was reverse-engineered by Bcomp, and then we optimized and manufactured the new design.”
