This is Formula 1 like you’ve never seen it before: drone manufacturer Dutch Drone Gods developed a 3D printed drone that can fly at 350 kph to keep up with and follow Max Verstappen’s brand-new Red Bull Racing RB20 F1 car for a full lap of Silverstone’s Grand Prix Circuit.
The world’s first uninterrupted FPV one shot was captured by a manually piloted custom-built drone, designed specifically for the challenge of keeping up with the car at speeds of over 300kph. It took Red Bull and the Dutch Drone Gods over a year to create a drone that can accelerate two times faster than an F1 car, reaching 300 kph in just 4 seconds with a top speed of over 350 kph.
Needless to say, the development was accelerated by access to know-how and processes (including a lot of 3D printing) of Red Bull Advanced Technologies, a high-performance engineering arm of Oracle Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team and trialed behind the RB8 and RB19 cars driven by Liam Lawson and David Coulthard.
The video shows how many iterations have been necessary in order to get a drone with parts that would not brake or burn up under the extreme stresses they were subjected to during the shoot. This is a testament to the quality of parts that can be produced with 3D printing and also to the unique possibilities that can be achieved by rapid and multi-iterative functional prototyping. In the end, the quality of the video is so incredible that even F1 World Champion Max Verstappen can’t believe his eyes.
