Composite materials in the automotive and racing world: a talk with HP Composites

Speaking to Daniele Zonetti, head of production at HP Composites, about the company’s approach to challenges within the market to continually raise the bar at a technical level, and stay at the top in an increasingly difficult market, transpires.

During this chat, all the experience and know-how in the hands of the company and the reason why HP Composites offers itself as the ideal partner to produce advanced composite material, come to light.

“The customer opts for carbon fiber for one specific reason, its weight. Weight means lightness, but that’s not all: a lot of the pieces we produce at racing level, are structural pieces, so they need to be reliable, produced to perfection and with no structural defects that might compromise the safety of a driver during a race.

From the automotive point of view, on the other hand, quality is also measured in terms of respect for tolerances, respect for quality appearance, often requested by clients, and something we are extremely good at doing.”

The company’s aim is very clear: become trailblazers of changes by creating structural components that are increasingly lighter and more efficient even for mass production in the automotive, motorsport, naval, aeronautical, industrial, and design industries.

One last quick question. The greatest challenges?

Daniele Zonetti tells us: “One that definitely springs to mind was an order for the automotive industry in which we had to produce twenty parts a day. I am talking about bumpers, extractors... Twenty pieces a day for a company that produces composites, but also of that size, are huge numbers.

Let’s just say that, by working as a team, regularly designing the process, planning the tools properly as well as all the technological aspects, we managed to overcome this challenge.”

“The customer opts for carbon fiber for one specific reason, its weight. Weight means lightness, but that’s not all: a lot of the pieces we produce at racing level, are structural pieces, so they need to be reliable, produced to perfection and with no structural defects that might compromise the safety of a driver during a race.

From the automotive point of view, on the other hand, quality is also measured in terms of respect for tolerances, respect for quality appearance, often requested by clients, and something we are extremely good at doing.”

- Daniele Zonetti, head of production at HP Composites–