Autosport Plus

How F1-inspired safety tech is filtering down to the grassroots

Lightweight bladder technologies developed by ATL have dominated F1 since 1988, but it's an altogether different crowd that the company wants to convert

Engineering

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With the hectic launch season over and done with and the new Formula 1 season now well under way, suppliers up and down the country are breathing deep sighs of relief. At the Aero Tec Laboratories (ATL) warehouse in Bletchley, it is almost palpable.

Founded in 1970 by American hobby racer Peter Regna, ATL supplies every team on the grid with safety fuel cells, which makes the run from October to April its busiest period of the year. With each hand-made bladder taking up to 150 man hours to assemble, and some F1 teams going through dozens of iterations before settling on a final design - which could well change again during the season - it's a long and arduous process.

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Author James Newbold

James Newbold is Autosport's Plus Editor, responsible for coordinating website feature content.

In a sign of things to come, having completed his Politics and International Relations degree at the University of East Anglia in 2015, he left his graduation ceremony early to catch the last train to Brussels for the following day's Spa 24 Hours.

After a period as a freelancer, he joined the Autosport staff in 2018 and won the Motorsport UK young journalist of the year award. He initially edited Autosport magazine's Performance and Engineering supplements before joining the website team in his current role in 2020.

A keen enthusiast of anything that can be categorised unusual or niche, he enjoys unearthing little-known stories across all branches of motorsport, but has spent most of his career covering sportscars and is a regular part of the Le Mans 24 Hours reporting team.

He lives with his wife and children in Plymouth, England.