Swedish innovation powering Formula 1

Motorsport isn’t just about speed anymore. Around the world, racing has become a live laboratory for sustainable technologies, smart manufacturing, and high performance people. For Swedish and UK businesses, it’s also a powerful storytelling platform: a place where engineering excellence, brand ambition, and talent development play out in real-time, under a global spotlight.

For SCC UK members, the racetrack is not an escape from business, but an extension of it – a place to pressure test engineering, manufacturing and talent in real time. This article follows three of our members – SKF, Atlas Copco, and 130R Performance – who are using motorsport in very different ways to shape their future.

When every thousandth of a second tests Swedish engineering
As a global leader in bearings and motion technologies, SKF’s Formula 1 collaborations place Swedish engineering in one of the harshest environments imaginable. For the company, F1 cars are essentially high speed R&D platforms: every lap generates data on how far their technologies can be pushed – and how much further they can go.

“Formula 1 gives us a uniquely demanding environment where every component is pushed to its limits,” says Ian Peverill, Managing Director UK. “Operating in F1 exposes our technologies to extreme heat, speed, and load conditions that are difficult to fully replicate in a conventional test bench. The insights gained feed directly into our broader portfolio and strengthen SKF’s reputation for precision, reliability and performance across all industries.”

“F1 acts as a live R&D platform where we can trial advanced materials under extreme conditions,” Ian explains. Racing operations generate real-time data that helps the team refine friction reduction, thermal stability, and durability on very short timescales. “These breakthroughs then cascade into industrial applications, enabling lighter, more efficient and longer lasting solutions that support global goals around energy efficiency and high performance engineering” he adds.

The impact of SKF’s involvement in Formula 1 extends further than products and solutions that are later used in wider contexts, as Peverill explains, “The collaborative, rapid iteration approach we have honed in F1 has also influenced how we co-develop solutions with customers across many other industries too.”

Building the future hybrid era, one tightened bolt at a time
From its roots in industrial tools and assembly solutions, Atlas Copco has taken its expertise straight into motorsport’s cutting edge through a Technical Partnership with Red Bull Ford Powertrains (RBFPT). Here, its connected tools and data platforms operate in an environment where precision and speed are pushed to the extreme.

“Our Technical Partnership with Red Bull Ford Powertrains has exposed us to an environment where precision, traceability, and speed are pushed to extremes, so their cars stay ahead on the track” says James McAllister, General Manager Tools & Industrial Assembly Solutions at Atlas Copco UK. “F1 demands tolerances and process control far beyond a typical industrial setting, which accelerates how we innovate and helps us validate new ideas faster, refine our data-driven technology portfolio for both the SMART Factory environment and in the pit lane.”

Inside the RBFPT facility, Atlas Copco’s systems optimise assembly, verify every critical joint, and capture rea-time insights that feed continuous improvement. That experience is reshaping how the company uses data more broadly.

“Working with RBFPT pushed the boundaries to develop faster, more accurate and more intuitive data-driven tools,” James notes. “That shift has influenced not only our product roadmap but also how we communicate our value – emphasising speed, precision, traceability, and agility as competitive advantages for any manufacturer, not just motorsport.”

As a Swedish company embedded in the UK’s motorsport cluster, Atlas Copco shows how racing can connect smart manufacturing, sustainability, and international collaboration. The racetrack becomes both a development lab and a powerful story about what future-ready production looks like.

Why backing people, not just cars, pays off
Drawing on work with elite athletes, 130R Performance brings sport psychology and talent development into the heart of motorsport – focusing less on running cars and more on building complete athletes, including Swedish driver Filip Engdahl.

“At 130R Performance, we take an athlete centred approach to motorsport development,” says Matthew Swindells, Business Owner of 130R Performance. “We combine mental skills coaching and race performance support to help drivers maximise their potential. Our goal is not just better race results, but sustainable long-term driver development both on and off the track.”

This is a long-term project that spans performance, psychology, and career management, including the work with commercial partners.

“Investing in psychologically informed talent development allows companies to become part of a driver’s long-term journey rather than simply gaining short-term branding exposure,” Matthew explains. “Partnerships built this way create stronger storytelling opportunities, deeper engagement, and more authentic brand alignment, while helping talented athletes like Filip maximise both their sporting potential and commercial value over time.”

Through 130R and Filip, we see that motorsport is also a human testbed – a place where mindset, coaching, and long-term backing can turn potential into performance, and give companies a more meaningful role in an athlete’s journey.

Motorsport as a meeting point for SCC UK members
“As a Chamber, we see the patterns behind individual stories,” says Selina Johansson, Membership & External Relations Executive at the SCC UK. “More of our members are using motorsport to test technology, meet partners, and position Swedish–British innovation on a very demanding global stage.”

For Selina, the appeal is that motorsport encompasses many of the challenges SCC UK members care about into one environment. “I think that our members recognise themselves in motorsport,” she says. “It’s about engineering excellence, data, sustainability, talent, and international collaboration – all under time pressure. That makes it a very natural arena for Swedish and UK companies to learn and be seen.”

As more Swedish and UK companies look for ways to test ideas, connect with global audiences, and back the next generation of talent, the racetrack might come to feature even more prominently in the SCC UK story.

Building a future beyond the racing tracks
Looked at together, the stories of SKF, Atlas Copco and 130R Performance show just how many things motorsport can be for Swedish and UK businesses. For some, it is an extreme engineering lab; for others, a testbed for smart, sustainable manufacturing; for others still, a way to develop people and tell deeper talent stories. What unites them is not the cars they back, but the future they are building – using the racetrack to test, learn and grow faster than they could anywhere else. In their own ways, they are all racing towards tomorrow.