Brembo Brakes: Stopping Everything from Ferrari to F1! - The Downshift Ep. 72
On this episode of The Downshift
Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC]
00:06 Brembo is the leader in the brake manufacturing.
00:09 We keep top road cars, starting from Ferrari, Porsche, and
00:15 as I said, all the top cars, and we are also involved in racing.
00:20 Starting from Formula 1 to GP2, GP3, Formula 3, and on a motorcycle.
00:27 We are supplying brakes for MotoGP, for super bike.
00:32 So I would say yes, he's the leader in brake manufacturing.
00:35 [MUSIC]
00:45 We are based in the north of Italy, close to Milan.
00:49 Brembo is certainly a brand and name well known in Italy.
00:54 It's one of the biggest Italian company.
00:57 Brembo born as a company in 1961.
01:01 The first product made by Brembo was the disc.
01:05 And then in the 70s, we start to make brake systems for motorbikes.
01:11 And this was the first challenge on moving from
01:14 just the disc to the complete brake system.
01:18 Then in the 80s, we start to supply Porsche with the complete brake system.
01:25 And from that point on, we started to be year by year
01:29 involved in the production of the brake system for top cars.
01:33 In the 1975, we start to supply brakes in Formula 1.
01:40 When Enzo Ferrari asked our president to design and
01:46 build the brake system for the car.
01:50 And the history is very short, but
01:55 seen a very quick growth from this producer, as I said, in the 60s.
02:02 And actually, we are the largest brake manufacturer in the world.
02:05 Is a good example of how an Italian company can be successful
02:11 also outside of the border.
02:13 [MUSIC]
02:16 How a racing brake, I would say, is made.
02:19 You start, obviously, the design is the first.
02:23 Collecting all the requirements given by a specific team, a car manufacturer.
02:30 Knowing the previous experience with the previous brakes,
02:33 understanding which are the target in terms of stiffness, installation, weight.
02:39 These are the information we collect in order to start the design.
02:42 It requires structural analysis plus computational fluid dynamic calculation.
02:47 That allowed us to develop the brakes under the performance point of view.
02:53 So stiffness driver feeling to guarantee that on the car,
02:57 you could keep constant and reliable performance.
03:00 Then as soon as the 3D model is released, we start with the production.
03:06 And then the machining is starting.
03:08 While the machining is starting, in parallel,
03:11 there are components that need to be prepared in order to be assembled in the caliper.
03:14 I'm talking about pistons, pad abutments, bleed screws, and all these kind of components.
03:21 While the production is completed, the caliper goes to the assembly department.
03:27 They assemble all the parts and make the final components.
03:33 They test the parts inside of the department in order to understand there's no any leaking.
03:39 While the first part is released to the testing department,
03:44 where we are now, to make the performance check.
03:47 Performance check means static check, where we check the stiffness.
03:52 And we live test the caliper plus the dyno test,
03:56 when we repeat exactly the behavior of the brake system on the car.
04:00 If everything goes right, the caliper arrives at the car and it's ready for a race weekend.
04:07 The difference between race brakes and road brakes,
04:10 especially in the last years, is very big.
04:14 So let's say that a Formula 1 brake system is easily 5-6 times lighter than a city car brake.
04:23 For road car, we supply and we produce carbon ceramic,
04:28 which is, let's say, halfway from a race brake and a road brake.
04:33 Carbon ceramic, of course, has a much longer life than a race brake,
04:37 because it has to last as long as the car life.
04:40 You know, pads for a road car, they are partially metallic and partially resin,
04:46 but heavy, heavy component.
04:48 On carbon brakes, these pads are the same material, so are very light.
04:58 Carbon brake has the capacity to dissipate a much bigger amount of energy.
05:05 And dissipate means it sucks and dissipates to the air.
05:09 That's why a Formula 1 car can stop in such a short time.
05:15 The discs achieve a very high temperature during the braking,
05:19 but in a few seconds it cools down.
05:22 And you can never achieve the same performances with cast iron.
05:29 There is no way.
05:30 So what would be the future on brakes for road cars and racing cars?
05:42 I think that road cars are moving to electrical cars very, very quickly.
05:49 There would be certainly a better integration by all the systems of the car
05:55 and the brake system as well.
05:57 So we could think that the brake-by-wire will become shortly a reality.
06:02 Brain Boy itself has developed and is working on the brake-by-wire
06:07 in order to be ready with this new concept.
06:10 Probably five years ago, we thought that we already reached the maximum in cooling
06:15 we could have from a brake system.
06:19 Actually, we are probably, I don't know, five, six, ten times better than five years ago.
06:25 There is always an improvement.
06:28 The improvement of material leads us to reconsider the geometry and then the design.
06:36 Improvement in new concepts to use on the brakes
06:42 to generate torque to guarantee higher friction.
06:45 I think this is well integrated in Brain Boy and in the Brain Boy philosophy.
06:50 (engine noise)
06:52 (tires screeching)
06:55 (tires screeching)
06:58 (tires screeching)
07:01 (tires screeching)
07:03 (tires screeching)
07:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]