Mike, what does your role as Technical Director Chassis entail on a day-to-day basis?
My job as Technical Director Chassis means that I am responsible for all areas of the chassis design, which incorporates aerodynamics and all the Research and Development, including vehicle dynamics and simulation. Additionally, I am in charge of Race and Test Engineering and activities within the F1 workshop. At the race track, it is also my function to oversee all operational activities and to lead race strategy discussions.

You first became involved in Formula 1 back in 1989 with the McLaren team. What had you been doing up to that point?
I joined McLaren in 1989, prior to which I had been at university in Cambridge in England studying for my degree and PhD. I attended Cambridge from 1982 and my focus of study was engineering, but specialising in aerodynamic and fluid dynamics. My PhD was in fluid dynamics looking at flow around ground-mounted obstacles. Upon leaving university, I contacted McLaren through a job advertisement and got an aerodynamicist post. I was employed by Bob Bell, who was subsequently my Deputy Technical Director at Renault and since my move to Panasonic Toyota Racing is the Renault F1 Team Technical Director.

The Past and Present of F1, and Fond Memories

When you first entered the world of Formula 1 racing, what was the biggest thing you discovered to be different to how you imagined it?
In all honesty, I did not have any preconceived ideas of Formula 1 at that time. I had never been massively interested in F1 or in motorsport, so it all came as a bit of rush when I was given the job. It was basically my first full-time job after university and I was very lucky to be able to find something that combined all of my interests – aerodynamics, engineering, sport, competition and windtunnel work. One of the benefits of my job as Technical Director Chassis is that I can still spend three hours per day in the windtunnel working at the heart of our aerodynamic development.

F1 Racing of the late 1980s and early 1990s was the era of Prost and Senna. How has the driver-car, driver-engineer relationship evolved over the years?
I do not think that the relationship between the driver and engineer has changed a great deal over the years. At McLaren we had Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, two of the most exceptional drivers in motorsport history, but even though the cars have evolved tremendously, the role of driving and setting up the car is still similar. The art of developing and executing the race strategy with the driver has also not changed. But the job of the driver has changed with the increased function of electronics and the amount of date logging required. Engineers have also had to adapt to become more analytical in their approach to a grand prix weekend. The teams at track are larger and everything is processed in much more detailed, but the essence of the driver-engineer relationship remains fundamentally the same. The engineer’s job has expanded, but the driver still has an accelerator, a brake, a steering wheel and four tyres sticking him to the ground, just as he had all those years ago.

You were also at Tyrrell, where Ukyo Katayama of Japan raced. Do you have any particular memories of that time?
Tyrell was a great place to work and as Deputy Technical Director under Harvey Postlethwaite it was a good arena for an engineer to learn his trade. They were very professional and innovative even for a comparatively small team. Ukyo Katayama drove for us for many years and was a good driver. I still see him nowadays and get along with him well. At university I did a lot of mountaineering and Ukyo does a lot of climbing, so we have a mutual interest and passion for that. Ukyo was a very quick driver. His best season came in 1994 when he drove some outstanding races and scored some excellent qualifying positions, putting the team higher up in the championship than it really deserved to be from its resources. I always remember his “bansai attack” qualifying laps. One of my fondest memories was Tyrrell’s first race in Brazil where I had only just joined the team and it was in a quite a lot of trouble. Harvey and I had only just joined and the design of the car was rather late with things only just about coming together for that race. But Ukyo drove a great race in difficult circumstances to finish 5th and won the first points for the team. That was a highlight and announced his ability to the world.