Want to help design an F1 car?

Motorsport Valley it isn’t. In fact it’s the Yorkshire Dales – not somewhere you’d expect to find an F1 constructor. But that’s where Nicolas Perrin is based and that’s what he wants to become. What’s more he wants YOU to become a part of it.

Here’s the deal: Perrin has a basic design that needs fleshing out. And anyone can help him, offering the chance that their contribution might – just might – one day be used on an actual F1 car.

It is, to say the least, an ambitious plan. A dream, you might say. But Perrin isn’t a dreamer; he’s simply aiming high. A French engineer with stints at Williams and Manor Marussia, he’s also designed Le Mans sports cars, including the one he hopes will race there in the near future.

F1 is some way further down the line. In fact, it’s currently against the rules with a car designed the way Perrin hopes to design his, or rather his/yours/ours/whomevers. But he also hopes it’s a fresh approach that can generate the sort of enthusiasm and interest to break down barriers.

‘We Are A Team’ is Perrin’s motto and in practical terms that means an open-source design approach more normally associated with computer software. As such, no-one would own the car’s intellectual property and so, in theory, everyone taking part could create their own version free of charge.

In practice, of course, building a car costs a lot of money (at least £2m). But in that regard Perrin reckons his method could help F1, in that IP rights usually mean a two or three-fold mark-up.

For now, a more immediate application is computer games – whose creators can’t get detailed access to IP-protected designs from current teams – and Perrin says that graphic designers are already involved.

Yet he stresses that "it’s a real team. It’s not virtual in the sense that it will only exist on the internet. It will be a real team with real people and real racing cars going to race on real tracks, in Formula 1 and at Le Mans.

"It is global, because we’re involving people from anywhere in the world and open source in the sense that we share the knowledge, we share the design, we share the communication to everyone that wants to be involved and it’s open to the public."

A good analogy with what Perrin is trying to build is Linux, the open-source computer operating system developed in the 1990s. Once seen as a counter to Microsoft Windows’ dominance, it’s now used more on smartphones (it operates beneath Android, for example) and other devices such as tablets, video games consoles, mainframes and servers. People contribute, and can create their own versions. But again, no-one owns it.

Perrin sees himself as a ‘benevolent dictator in chief’ like Linux founder Linus Torvalds – heading up a small nucleus of design staff, taking on board contributions from around the globe and having the final say on what goes on the car they’d like to develop.

And where would all these great ideas from? Individuals, schools, universities – rather like the Bloodhound SSC land-speed record project. "Anyone can get involved," Perrin says. "It’s like a big round table and we get companies and people around – and the general public can be members and partners. Anyone can come and be a member and have the same access to communication and data as the companies or other people.

"We will split the project in multiple areas and we’ll announce where we want the public to effectively give ideas, or try to suggest new solutions for this particular area, be it design or something escalating to the project. And if it’s better than what we already have, then it will be incorporated in the new version of the car."

But if F1 is seen as a rich man’s sport, doesn’t it suggest that some might be getting rich off the labours of others – the thought of a champagne lifestyle on one side of the globe while an Adrian Newey-style genius toils in obscurity someplace less salubrious?

"Most people will follow us and re-use our open source design as a hobby, for fun or to learn, and we won't re-use their work ourselves," Perrin responds. "But if someone is clearly talented and offers valuable solutions back to us we will consider offering the role of expert inside ‘We Are A Team’ and pay that person like a normal employee, naturally.

"We need a pool of paid experts anyway. This way our experts will come from anywhere in the world and we'll be sure of their talent."

And this seems an awful long way off… but what if the car actually became a race winner? Clearly, the secrets of your success wouldn’t be so secret to other teams. Is it a price worth paying?

"The day our direct competitors start copying us, it will mean that we have been successful at establishing ourselves as a leader. It will be very positive and increase our user base which is our aim and will create new opportunities."

Perrin might be trying to do something different but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s fighting the status quo on all fronts. He’s against a budget cap, for example, and thinks it right that Bernie Ecclestone should sign Ferrari up for far, far more money than smaller teams because the majority of F1 fans are Ferrari fans. He also has nothing against customer cars – as well he might, given that his idea is essentially to build one.

At present, this is the biggest stumbling block. "At the moment, if you look at the sporting regulations you cannot be a Formula 1 team using open source design," he says. "The design cannot be shared. Our team is based on sharing knowledge, so there is a little bit of a conflict here at the moment.

"But I do think that things are moving anyway and I think it will be about having the discussions in the future and making maybe some change to the rules that will be beneficial anyway for the championship."

If the rules are to change then another barrier, as things stand, would be the F1 Strategy Group, which is dominated by big teams who, depending on whom you talk to, are keen to carve up any customer car market among themselves. But Perrin doesn’t think the group will last, particularly with the big team bosses themselves now questioning its purpose.

With all the potential barriers to progress, Perrin reckons it would be at least another five years before he actually builds a car. Right now, he’s on the verge of announcing three backers (all IT companies less than five years old) but hopes his new approach can attract more soon – and from fields that might not have considered F1 before.

So if word spreads, momentum might grow, the whole thing could snowball… and the snowball might become an avalanche?

"It’s harder to get the initial companies and partners in; but then the more you get the more confidence people get to come in as well," Perrin says.

"And then once we’re big enough, we can go and maybe speak with the Formula 1 rights holder and say, ‘Look, we’ve got all these people from around the world following us, they can’t wait for us to go racing. We’ve got all these companies involved as well. So it will be good for the championship to have us in as well, so what can we do?’

"I’m sure we’ll reach a size that will allow us to have these discussions and I’m quite certain that in the future the doors will open for us."

As you can see, Perrin is aiming high. And as you can imagine, as F1 team locations go, the Dales is a great place to farm sheep. But as you’ve also probably gathered, location is largely irrelevant. Cloud technology would join the dots and an existing team would race the cars. And what’s to stop the model being used in, say, the design of a power unit as well?  

Doubtless there will be naysayers. For a sport predicated on speed – literally, of course, but also speed of thought and the ability to react to change – F1 can also be very slow to change in other ways. Yet Linux established itself against a corporation and proved there was another way of doing things.

"The fans love the project and obviously we give them a new sort of experience and a new level of involvement in the sport that they like, so it’s very positive," Perrin adds.

"As for the people who are working in Formula 1 or in charge, they’re looking at the project with a positive eye as well, they’re just looking to see how big it’s going to become. We’re not a threat to them at all; quite the opposite, and because we’re in the early stages at the moment there’s no issue.

"We just need to grow and I think a lot of people want to see how big this is going to become because we could become an answer to some of the current issues as well that they have."

Visit the Perrinn website here