Ricardo wins award for motorsports export achievement

With its production output increasing threefold in the past four years – and over 50 per cent of that output being export sales – Ricardo’s high performance driveline and transmission business had been recognised with a Business Excellence Award for Export Achievement.

The Motorsport Industry Association (MIA) Business Excellence Awards recognise excellence at all levels within the motorsport and high performance engineering industry, and the presentation to Ricardo was made on 10 January at the dinner of the Autosport International Show in Birmingham, UK. The award comes at a time of unprecedented success for Ricardo, which has over ten major motorsport driveline and transmission programmes in progress. These include the provision of support for M-Sport in the design of the transmissions for the BP Ford RS Focus WRC cars – which recently took the manufacturers’ title two years in succession – and the design of a bespoke gearbox for the 908 HDi FAP Le Mans diesels of Team Peugeot Total. On the day of the awards dinner it was also announced that Ricardo will work with California-based Swift Engineering to supply the transmissions for Formula Nippon, Japan’s premier open wheel series, from the 2009 season.

“We are honoured to have been recognised with the MIA Business Excellence Award for export achievement,” said Ricardo’s director of high performance transmissions products, Mark Barge, on accepting the award. “This accolade underscores the hard work and commitment of the Ricardo team to provide the most competitive performance driveline and transmission systems and components to our motorsport customers in all parts of the world.”