The automotive industry faces an unprecedented challenge: delivering high- performance, lightweight vehicles while meeting increasingly stringent sustainability targets. For many manufacturers, this has led to partnerships with advanced materials companies, using the most demanding testing grounds available — professional motorsports racing — to validate technologies that will eventually transform how everyday vehicles are built. Through rigorous testing on racetracks around the world, sustainable composite materials are no longer experimental concepts, but production-ready solutions poised to revolutionise mainstream RACING AS TECHNOLOGY INCUBATOR The collaboration between Swiss cleantech company Bcomp and Japanese composite specialist Tras exemplifies how racing partnerships create direct pipelines for sustainable innovation. Tras is one of Japan’s leading composite specialists and a 20-year collaborator of Suzuki’s motorsport teams. Originally, Tras used Bcomp composite materials to develop prototype bodywork for the Suzuki ECSTAR MotoGP team. This technical demonstration kick-started the collaboration between Tras and Bcomp, automotive manufacturing. FROM TRACK TO TARMAC: producing race-ready components for team Suzuki CN CHALLENGE for the 2024 and 2025 editions of the Suzuka 8 endurance race. This event is Japan’s premier motorcycle endurance event and a prominent round of the FIM Endurance World Championship. The race subjects both riders and machines to eight continuous hours of competition in intense summer heat, making it an ideal proving ground for advanced materials under extreme conditions. This rapid evolution from experimental applications to supplying natural fibre composite bodywork for high-profile racing programs in just two years demonstrates the
accelerated development cycle that makes racing a true testing ground for innovative materials. The Suzuki collaboration, featuring fenders, winglets, and fairings made from Bcomp’s flax fibre composites, proved that sustainable materials can withstand the punishing demands of endurance racing while delivering up to 85% CO2 reduction compared to traditional carbon fibre. Beyond Suzuki, Tras and Bcomp also developed a unique natural fibre composite body for the 2025 Toyota HiLux AXCR championship, demonstrating the versatility of sustainable composites in rally racing conditions, where impacts, vibrations, and environmental extremes test every component to the limit. ADVANCED MATERIAL ENGINEERING AND RACING PERFORMANCE METRICS The unique properties of Bcomp’s natural fibre composites, derived from flax fibres, enable engineering solutions that can match and even exceed traditional materials while delivering environmental benefits. They must meet uncompromising performance standards as milliseconds separate victory from defeat. Bcomp’s flax-based reinforcement fabric, ampliTex™ and its reinforcement grid, powerRibs™, have been continuously refined through racing collaborations. ampliTex™ is a woven fabric made from flax fibres that can be configured in a wide variety of patterns. When combined with resin, it creates lightweight, stiff composite panels used for larger, flatter surfaces like body panels, seat shells, and fairings. For additional reinforcement, powerRibs™ provides structural support that mimics leaf veins, strategically placed to achieve desired stiffness specifications in load-bearing areas of composite parts. This accelerated validation process has demonstrated exceptional stiffness-to-weight ratios comparable to thin-walled monolithic
ADVANCED MATERIAL ENGINEERING
carbon fibre parts while offering superior vibration-damping properties — particularly valuable in racing where drivers need to sustain speed comfortably, and in production vehicles where it creates quieter, more comfortable experiences for passengers. Beyond weight savings, the natural fibre composites exhibit ductile fracture behaviour with blunt edges, preventing the sharp debris generation associated with carbon fibre failures. This safety characteristic reduces racing downtime and has direct implications for production vehicle safety standards. MOTORSPORTS AS THE ULTIMATE VALIDATION GROUND Motorsports racing provides the most rigorous testing conditions for advanced materials. Racing partnerships create what engineers call “accelerated real-world testing,” where years of typical use are compressed into single racing seasons under extreme conditions. McLaren Racing successfully integrated Bcomp’s solutions into Lando Norris’s Formula 1 seat and bodywork, Škoda used ampliTex™ and powerRibs™ to create the Fabia RS Rally2 car bodywork at the Enyaq RS Race, and the DTM series implemented natural fibre components as mandatory specifications across all competitors. The strongest validation example is BMW’s collaboration. In 2019, Bcomp and BMW Motorsport pioneered the use of CO2 reduced materials in Formula E by using ampliTex™ and powerRibs™ materials to build a high-performance cooling shaft for the BMW iFE.20 race car.
FROM RACE TO ROAD How cutting-edge materials from the racetrack could decarbonise the school run
Machinery & Manufacturing invites Johann Wacht, Manager Business Development & Strategic Customer Relationships at Bcomp to explore.
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