McLaren F1 & MP4/1 – Carbonfibre Pioneers!

Carbonfibre has come a long way since its early days in the aerospace industry (and you’ll never guess where it was first used before that…).

Now it’s everywhere in the automotive industry, from the chassis of high-end supercars to the dashboards of SUVs.

McLaren famously pioneered the use of carbon in cars, first in Formula 1, then in the iconic F1 – though it didn’t actually build the first carbon Formula 1 racer or first carbon road car.

Over to Top Gear’s Head of Car Testing, Ollie Marriage, for a history lesson…

Subscribe to Top Gear for more videos: http://bit.ly/SubscribeToTopGear

WANT MORE TOP GEAR?
Listen to the Top Gear Magazine Podcast: https://topgear.podlink.to/Podcast
Sign up for our newsletter: https://www.topgear.com/newsletter-signup

00:00 Intro
01:10 History of carbonfibre
02:18 Under a McLaren MP4/1
03:56 Carbonfibre For Formula 1
05:20 Who used carbonfibre first?
07:01 How do you make it?
08:20 How long can it last?
10:08 The future of carbon

MORE ABOUT TOP GEAR:
Welcome to the official home of Top Gear on YouTube. Here you'll find all the best clips from your favourite episodes, whether that’s Ken Block drifting London in the Hoonicorn, Chris Harris in the latest Porsche 911 GT3 or classic Top Gear clips from Clarkson, Hammond and May. You'll also find the latest performance car reviews from the TopGear.com crew, our brand new series American Tuned with Rob Dahm and the fastest power laps from our in house performance benchmark: The Stig.

This is a commercial channel from BBC Studios.

Service & Feedback https://www.bbcstudios.com/contact/contact-us/