From warehouses to Hollywood - the rise of Oxfordshire in F1

From warehouses to Hollywood, Oxfordshire’s rise in Formula 1 highlights how the county has become a motorsport technology hub worth at least three-quarters of a billion pounds annually. The sport is set to return to its “spiritual home” at Silverstone over the weekend, with four of the 11 F1 teams operating facilities in the area. The cluster, often called “Motorsport Valley,” is concentrated largely within a 50-mile radius of Oxford and includes decades of engineering that began with industrial estates. Williams was founded in 1977 by Sir Frank Williams and Sir Patrick Head, first working from a base above a carpet warehouse in Didcot before later attracting drivers such as Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill. Today, Williams employs about 1,200 staff, and its Grove factory was used for filming a Brad Pitt movie about the sport. Alpine traces its West Oxfordshire operations to Enstone, where it built championship-winning cars.