September 5, 2005, Sheffield, UK…. WilliamsF1, a leading Formula 1 team has signed a new deal with Fluent Europe Ltd. to use its world-leading CFD software and services after Fluent won a series of rigorous benchmarking tests. Running from 2005, the agreement will see WilliamsF1 work exclusively with Fluent for an initial three-year period, with an agreement for a further 2 years, assuming Fluent continues to maintain its position as the most advanced CFD software in the world.

Fluent has a long history of success in F1. Eight of the last 10 Formula 1 championship winning teams used Fluent’s CFD software. WilliamsF1 won two of its sixteen World Championships in 1996 and 1997 using FLUENT CFD, but an unbroken partnership between the two has existed dating back to the early 1990s. In spite of this, WilliamsF1 were keen to ensure they were still using the very best performing CFD software and services possible, which led them to run a benchmarking contest. Each of the main CFD vendors took part before a winner was chosen. Fluent’s high level of expert support and the overall technical ability of its software were important factors in the company’s success but it was the advanced new features in Fluent’s TGRID V4 pre-processing software that proved key. Naethan Eagles, Senior CFD Aerodynamicist at WilliamsF1, explains: “The ability to assess the potential of a new design quickly and efficiently is key to minimising the "time to track" of a given design. The new features in TGrid V4 give the FLUENT user the ability to generate high quality mesh around complex geometry in minutes without having continually to modify the underlying surface mesh or remove problematic features. This functionality has significantly reduced the time to build our CFD models, and hence the time to evaluate the performance of a new design or concept.”

Chris King, Managing Director at Fluent Europe Ltd., says: “Fluent has long been the technical leader in CFD. Our investment in continual innovation and expert support is the main reason Fluent has maintained, for more than ten years, its position as the dominant provider of CFD to F1, with 7 of the current 10 teams using our software. We anticipate this commitment to serving our clients’ needs will see our strong position in both F1 and the commercial automotive CFD market, strengthened over the coming years.”