An Italian company supplies filters to the entire Formula 1 circuit: a little-known story of Italian-made technology

If you look a little more closely, the world of Italian business always has some pleasant surprises in store. Take the case of UFI: it manufactures filters for cars and lorries, but also for helicopters and space probes, based between Nogarole Rocca and Marcaria (home to the Advanced Applications Division), in the area linking the provinces of Verona and Mantua. It also operates in around twenty other plants, seven of which are in China, employing a total of 4,300 people, with three research centres (in Italia, China and India) and a turnover of approximately 600 million euros. One of the giants of the filtration sector, therefore, with a presence in other fields too (thermal management for electric vehicles, hydrogen), an original equipment manufacturer for 95% of automotive brands and a number of manufacturers accounting for half of heavy vehicle production. A creation of Giorgio Girondi, an entrepreneur also well-known in the world of finance who, having taken the reins of the company founded by his father in 1971, led it to conquer the world, establishing its first plants in China as early as the early 1980s – at that time, a market still largely unknown to the major automotive executives.

But – and this is the biggest surprise of all – UFI is now also a company capable of supplying filters to all eleven Formula 1 teams competing in the 2026 World Championship. How it reached this milestone almost by chance is a story worth telling. One day in the second half of the 1970s, in fact, two Ferrari engineers, driving along the motorway near Nogarole Rocca, spotted the sign of a filter company: concerned as they were about the high pressures generated in the circuits of Maranello’s 12-cylinder boxer F1 engines, they stepped inside that small factory to discuss the possible supply of components. Niki Lauda was the first to test them at Fiorano, with satisfaction; Carlos Reutemann, on the other hand, had the opportunity to be the first to win a Grand Prix (the 1978 British Grand Prix) in a 312 T3 fitted with UFI filters.

Custom-made components

This marked the beginning of a partnership with Ferrari that continues to this day, with UFI now supplying over 6,000 filters a year to all Formula 1 teams – ranging up to 15 per car – distributed between the engine (main and secondary filters for the oil, high-pressure circuit and air) and the chassis (filters for the engine cooling circuit and its hybrid component, as well as the hydraulic filters for the brakes, power steering and movable wings). All filters are manufactured to each team’s specifications, with the utmost confidentiality, through constant dialogue with the teams’ designers, who communicate their requirements during the design phase of the car for the following season; Once the championship is underway, modifications may then be requested to be implemented as quickly as possible, dictated by developments in the cars, but also by analyses of the filters used, which serve as indicators of any potential problems with the powertrains.

Even a seemingly mundane component such as a filter has, after all, reached a high level of sophistication today, both in terms of weight reduction – with petrol filters, for instance, having gone from well over a kilo in the 1970s to just over 60 grams today, thanks to the use of materials such as titanium, carbon, Ergal and stainless steel – and in filtration performance: the use of petrol with increasing ethanol content, required by F1 regulations, and of new types of oil has in fact necessitated technological solutions for the manufacture of filter media capable of preventing possible adverse chemical reactions, employing raw materials such as glass fibre, polymer fibres and novel polymer blends. For bonding the filter elements, on the other hand, adhesives are used that are usually intended for aeronautical applications.