With 15 years experience in the world of F1 racing Alastair Gibson knows all about carbon fibre. Now pursuing a career as a pioneering sculptor Alastair is using the material to make some spectacular pieces of art and he has turned to refinish experts Spies Hecker to provide the perfect finish.

Mixing artistic skill with a heavy dose of engineering expertise, many of the sculptures feature fish which Alistair, who is based near the Silverstone circuit, says share much in common with F1 cars. He comments, “Formula One cars and sharks have very clear centre lines, they are both beautifully symmetrical and of course race cars are supremely aerodynamic and sharks are completely hydrodynamic , basically aerodynamic, but in water.”

Now a full time artist for eight years, Alastair spent 15 years in F1, first as a lead mechanic for the Benetton Team, and then as race team chief mechanic for the BAR and Honda Grand Prix teams.

Discarded carbon fibre fragments from the cars provided a source of material for Alastair’s initial artistic designs and he now uses CAD software to help construct his latest complex sculptures, which can take as much as four weeks to create. He comments, “All the time that goes into the pieces up to this point would be wasted if we could not get a gorgeous finish to show off the weave of the carbon fibre.”

For the finish Alistair is able to call on the help of Andrew Moody, Head of Paint and Graphics at MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS, and his team. Once the sculptures are assembled, he transports them to the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS paint shop in Brackely, where they are coated in Spies Hecker paint, just like the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS race cars and team trucks.

Andrew Moody says, “We use Permahyd Hi-TEC Base Coat 480 on the sculptures if colour is required, and Permasolid  HS Optimum Plus Clear Coat 8650, which gives us a great glossy shine and makes the sculptures look their best. It’s interesting for my team to paint something so completely different. They enjoy the challenge, even though it can be time-consuming. The 1m-wide j manta took about 25 hours to paint, and one of the racing piranhas took about 10 hours from start to finish.”

Joachim Hinz, Spies Hecker Brand Manager Europe, Middle East and Africa, says, “To see Spies Hecker being used on such creative and artistic pieces of art is wonderful. We know that our refinish paint provides a fantastic finish on passenger cars and commercial vehicles, but now we can also say that it’s good for a carbon fibre hammerhead shark and piranha! We are very honoured to be part of Alastair’s journey.”

The most unique aspect of the pieces is that they incorporate Formula One parts, each of which has a production and part number that can be traced back to a specific car and race. The unique sculptures sell to collectors all over the world.