Williams F1 establishes Technical Centre

Williams F1 and the Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) formally signed an agreement today to inaugurate the Williams Technology Centre (WTC). QSTP is a world class incubator for the research, development and commercialization of new technologies that has attracted significant R&D investment from companies such as Shell, Microsoft and GE. QSTP is part of the Qatar Foundation which also incorporates Education City, which hosts overseas campuses for six US universities including Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M.

The Williams Technology Centre at QSTP will be the first Formula One-related Technical Centre outside the sport’s traditional heartland of Europe. The WTC will initially be tasked with the progression of two Formula One inspired R&D projects with clear commercial goals, namely the development of an industrial application large Magnetically Loaded Composite (MLC) flywheel and the advancement of Williams F1’s simulator know-how for competition and road car application.

The Williams Technology Centre will be housed in the 45,000m2 state-of-the-art QSTP complex that forms part of the Qatar Foundation’s strategic ambition to invest in, and propagate, a knowledge-based, post-carbon economy.

QSTP and Williams F1 will fund the R&D programs and, as partners, will both benefit from the commercialization of the technologies that have their origins in Formula One.

The MLC flywheel project will address the potential of flywheels to store and release energy very quickly, which makes the technology suitable for a variety of applications. Initial target markets are mass transit systems (both for recycling the kinetic energy of trains and trams and to allow discontinuous electrification to reduce infrastructure costs) and electric power stabilization for renewable energy applications.