Welding her future: how Lucy Brown built her dream career in F1

From as young as she can remember, Lucy Brown wanted to build racing cars. After leaving school at 16, she began an apprenticeship and trained at a motorsport fabrication company in Bicester, making exhausts. In time, she became a production manager, overseeing operations, and eight years ago she joined us in Enstone. Today, Lucy is Validation Testing Manager for the BWT Alpine Formula One Team - a critical role responsible for testing all components before they are fitted to the car.

“As a department, we don’t produce anything, but we are there to effectively break things,” says Lucy. “That might sound unusual, but it’s vitally important from a safety perspective. We’re essentially a research and development area of the team and we are working with other departments, whether that’s engineering or manufacturing, to prove their concepts and components are safe and performing as they are expected to.

“I moved into that role as they were looking for someone with expertise who could manage the workflow of the department, along with the health and safety side of it, in addition to collaborating with the rest of the F1 team.”

Lucy explains that components are tested under various loads - for example, a front wing or suspension part would be put under stress that mirrors the real-world forces it would face, whether at 200mph or riding a kerb. The parts are placed on bespoke rigs controlled by hydraulic actuators. As well as safety testing, her team ensures that all parts meet the stringent legality tests mandated by the FIA - which has recently included increased loading requirements on the front wings.

“Before the start of the season, we also manage the safety testing of the chassis and nose, as well as side impact, roll hoop testing and components around the fuel cell to make sure it is contained in the event of an accident,” adds Lucy.

“This dynamic testing, where we put parts of the car onto a sled and crash it into a wall, we do at an external location that is specifically set up for this type of operation. There are other tests to simulate dynamic load where we apply the equivalent of 50 tons to ensure the chassis can withstand that load. Inevitably, there is a lot of risk assessment that needs to be done before we can start any test.”

Growing up in a family that enjoyed watching motorsport - with annual visits to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix - Lucy was always set on following a career in the sport, despite the competition for places.

“It was difficult to get an apprenticeship, that was for sure,” she says. “Back in 1998, to get a placement at Enstone, there were over 200 applications for ten places. But once I got my foot in the door, I never doubted my ability. The mentors who trained me when I was 16 - even though I’d never picked up a welding torch before - treated me just like everyone else. That meant a lot.”