Racing lines: Visiting F1's small suppliers

“My grandfather was originally an engineer who made commercial fire extinguishers, loved motorsport and saw a gap in the market,” says Tuppen, adding that Niki Lauda’s fiery accident at the Nürburgring in 1976 was part of his inspiration.

The first F1 team deal was done in 1999, with others quickly following – and now FEV covers the whole grid. So what does FEV produce and why is it so trusted?

Strictly confidential

The first part is a tricky subject for FEV to answer, because the confidential nature of supplying multiple F1 teams that are deeply and intrinsically competitive means the company is bound to almost total silence. What does become clear is that while F1 teams are increasingly autonomous and keep as much in-house as possible, even the best resourced require specialist suppliers to meet specific demands.

Fire-safety gear, which is mandatory in the FIA’s technical regulations, is one of those key areas that require a degree of outsourcing. What FEV can tell us is the extinguishers are bespoke for each team, which dictate their design, shape, manufacture and location on the car. No surprise there, given how every aspect of modern F1 design is optimised for shrink-wrapped, lightweight packaging

F1 is only one part of the business. FEV also supplies fire-suppression systems to Porsche, for both its racing and road car divisions, to Skoda in rallying and to all manner of club and national racers. At entry level, extinguishant foam is common, but Tuppen explains that a gas is the solution preferred within motorsport’s upper echelons: “It has no risk of corrosion and evaporates in about 10 seconds, whereas if you ever see a foam extinguishant go off, it makes a big mess. We use a 3M Novec 1230 gas, which is as environmentally friendly as we can get. There are nozzles directed on the engine and in the cockpit, and flow rates and cockpit volumes are calculated so that the amounts released are safe for the driver.”

Why small is best

So why FEV and not a larger competitor? The F1 teams like the direct communication and can-do attitude that is instilled in such a small, agile firm, and word of mouth is important this deep into the motorsport business.

“Our customer service is what we’re known for as a family business, which is always a key thing in this industry,” says Tuppen. “The teams are really good to work with, and we hear ‘can you do this now?’ a lot, which is common in motorsport. We offer a personal service, have strong product development and use high-quality parts that we try to source locally as often as possible.”

Our visit coincides with F1’s pre-season tests at the end of FEV’s busiest four-month period as the teams finalise and tune their requirements for their new cars. But the pandemic flattened out the seasonal nature to which the business used to operate; and with Porsche, Skoda and other high-profile clients to service, the days of FEV shutting down for a couple of weeks and all staff heading off on summer holidays at the same time are gone.

There are ambitions for FEV to grow following a move from Jones’ very tiny original premises. A network of service agents and distributors at home and abroad have expanded the scope to as far away as Japan and hopefully to new markets in the US in the future. But you get the impression that such a company shouldn’t expand too much or too fast, to avoid compromising precisely what makes it so special.