THE MITAS TOUCH

STEPHEN MITAS IS probably an unfamiliar name to you. As a motorsport engineer, he’s usually toiling away in the background, far from the limelight, but here’s why you should know him: Mark Webber, Peter Brock, Robert Kubica, Timo Bernhard, Sebastien Vettel, Jacques Villeneuve, Daniel Ricciardo, Nick Heidfeld, Brendon Hartley, Marc Lieb, Rick Kelly, Nico Hulkenberg, Nick Tandy, Jean-Eric Vergne, Cameron McConville, Romain Dumas. These are just some of the drivers Mitas has worked with in a 20-year career that has propelled him to the very summit of the motor racing world.

Melbourne-born and bred, 41-year-old Mitas sat down with MOTOR over a (very long) lunch during a visit to his home town, and told the story of how a car-mad kid went from voluntarily twirling spanners on a Formula Holden to calling the shots for Porsche’s 919 Le Mans program, with stints in NASCAR, Supercars and F1 along the way.

With a quick smile and a confusing accent that betrays an adult life largely spent abroad, Mitas looks too young to have spent almost two decades in racing, but explains that the bug bit early.

“Like most kids growing up in Australia, I was obsessed with cars: Ford, Holden, Peter Brock, Bathurst. As I got older the racing thing became more interesting because it was on telly, and the whole Peter Brock story. The [Bathurst] race in ’87 still rings in my ears today; that race for me was phenomenal. Slick tyres, wet track, catching the Sierras, and I remember Brock was doing interviews [from behind the wheel], one hand out the window, sliding all over the place. For me that was like a light switch–how is that even possible?”

While studying mechanical engineering at RMIT, Mitas began his attempts at emulating Brock’s heroics. “During university I became more and more interested in cars and racing, and I built a Mk I Escort rally car in my parents’ garage. It was more difficult than I expected; not the driving side, but the financial requirements to keep it going. It was a Kent 1.3 with a crank and bore job out to 1.6; it was a bit of a Frankenstein because every piston was from a different engine, but it was a quick little thing. It produced something like 140bhp, weighed 750kg, welded diff. I had rally tyres on