Keith Ferrell works on Ford’s manufacturing technology development team and leads the relationship between Ford and the Red Bull team related to additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing. He said this level of 3D printing allows Ford to print parts for racing that cannot be made by traditional methods.
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Ford’s additive manufacturing team has already produced around 1,000 3D-printed parts for the company’s partnership with Red Bull Powertrains, which begins with the 2026 Formula One season.
Ford’s first F1 race in two decades is still a year away, but testing is already in full swing — and it’s out of this world.
Innovation at warp speed
Applying testing methods like those used in the aerospace industry, the Additive Manufacturing team is rapidly producing 3D-printed parts for the racing team leading up to the partnership’s on-track debut.
“It’s not things like nuts and bolts and easy stuff,” said Ford Performance Motorsports Powertrain Manager Christian Hertrich, who estimated Ford has already produced around 1,000 parts for the Red Bull team.
These are complex metal and polymer parts that get tested to extremes so they can withstand races that average 200 miles an hour.
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Ford has already produced around 1,000 parts for the cars’ powertrains.
These include cold plates for batteries and cooling plates for other parts. Ford is utilizing its more than 100 years of manufacturing expertise to produce components for the power unit, including both the internal combustion engine and hybrid system.
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The use of these parts in the high-speed proving grounds of F1 circuits requires robust scanning and testing from different areas of Ford.
Every part is tested within the additive manufacturing team for critical measures such as mechanical strength, hardness, and geometric compliance (3D scanned). But they also must be x-rayed and CT scanned by the Non-Destructive Evaluation team, which creates and examines digital models of components, before heading to the metrology, or measurement lab, at Ford’s Product Development Center.
All hands on deck
Hertrich said that contributions are coming from employees outside of additive manufacturing, including those responsible for new vehicle models, thermal systems, and battery development.
“We’re pulling in all of these Ford teams with all of these areas of expertise to help in the program,” he said. “It’s not just the motorsport group working on this. It’s amazing to see how many different areas of the company have already been involved.”
Ferrell said this increased testing is trickling down to other Ford teams for testing on the parts used in consumer models.
From F1 to F-150
One concrete example of how this technology transfer is already benefiting Ford's production vehicles can be seen in the F-150 program. The Non-Destructive Engineering team used advanced scanning techniques to quickly identify a glue overflow issue in headlamps that caused condensation and pricey repairs. It was a problem that had eluded traditional inspection methods for months, but was uncovered in just one day of testing.
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Ford’s Non-Destructive Engineering team used the same scanning techniques that can be applied to F1 parts development to solve a recurring issue with the Ford F-150.
Ford now looks to expand these rigorous quality control processes to other models to improve vehicle reliability.
