Smith: “What’s different about motor racing?”

GH: Quite a lot, really. While the demands for strength, fatigue resistance and quality control can be similar, and the assembly and inspection procedures in racing can be as rigorous as aerospace, in professional racing very few parts are over designed and there are no fail safe features.

There are no back up provisions for component failure. A failed (or even loosened) nut or bolt in a racing engine means disaster - instant catastrophic failure. An expensive engine is destroyed and a race is lost.

That is why random failures are unacceptable in motor racing, and why aerospace standards should be only a starting point. This means that a specialist in the production of high performance engine fasteners must design and manufacture the very best fasteners that can be produced.