INTRODUCING TIM WRIGHT

For someone who “wasn’t bright enough to go to university”, Autosport’s new technical expert Tim Wright has enjoyed a motorsport career that would be the envy of most engineers. From running Alain Prost to back-to-back Formula 1 World Championship titles in 1985 and 1986 to winning the Le Mans 24 Hours as a race engineer at Peugeot in 1992 and working with Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, Wright has been at the heart of the action for the past 40 years and remains involved today engineering in sportscar events around the world.

Since starting out as a draughtsman and working his way up to race engineering, Wright has been in teams with some of the most powerful and significant figures in the sport, including Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Ron Dennis, had input into legendary machines such as the all-conquering McLaren MP4/4, and seen first-hand the transformations that resulted from the adoption of ground-effect and the data revolution. There are few better qualified to bring you the best insights into the latest technical developments in F1 and beyond.

Wright, 71, started his career with a four-year apprenticeship with Babcock & Wilcox, a company making nuclear and steam boilers, before moving onto ejector-seat company Martin Baker, where he was bitten by the motorsport bug and started racing Mini Sevens with money inherited from his grandfather.

After a tough first year, where Wright admits he was “pushed around a bit”, he acquired a purpose-built engine from Mini specialist Richard Longman and took a second place at Brands Hatch – “That was the first time my name ever appeared in Autosport” – before an altercation with an earth bank at Mallory Park spelled the end of his short-lived racing career.

“It was quite a big impact,” recalls Wright. “I was newly married and she put her foot down about spending