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Inside McLaren’s Technology Centre
Published
6:06 AM EDT, Fri September 25, 2015
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Some of the world's fastest racing cars are built here inside the secret corridors of the McLaren Technology Center, home to the McLaren team's Formula One factory in the UK since 2004.
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McLaren racing director Eric Boullier shows CNN sports anchor Amanda Davies some of the carbon fiber parts used to build an F1 car. "3D printing is something we are looking at for the future to make more complex parts," Boullier tells CNN.
Sarah Holt / CNN
"An F1 car is composed of 76,000 parts and we building a new part every 17 minutes," Boullier says. This is the McLaren car driven by Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso during the 2015 season.
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The carbon fiber car parts are cooked inside an autoclave. This giant oven is used to bake the car chassis and temperatures reach up to 300 degrees Celsius or 572 Fahrenheit. Luckily it wasn't turned on when Eric and Amanda stepped inside.
Sarah Holt / CNN
British Prime Minister David Cameron chats with Ron Dennis, the Executive Chairman of McLaren Automotive, during a visit to the McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) in 2011. Dennis wants the MTC to showcase the best of British engineering and technology.
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"You can't do pit stops in two seconds without sometimes losing a wheel nut," explains McLaren racing director Eric Boullier as the race crew practice pit stops behind anchor Amanda.
Sarah Holt / CNN
The McLaren Technology Centre may be high tech but it's also at one with nature. It was built on 50 hectares of exhausted farmland by architects Norman Foster and partners. Now the land is rich with wildlife. In 2011 McLaren Racing was announced as the first ever carbon neutral team in F1.