Nigel Stepney
Nigel Stepney (born November 14, 1958 in Ufton , Stratford-on-Avon , † May 2, 2014 in Ashford , Kent ) was a British mechanic . He was chief mechanic and team coordinator for the Ferrari Formula 1 team .
Life
Stepney trained as a car mechanic with the Broadspeed racing team, which built touring cars for the ETCC . When the team ran into financial difficulties at the end of the 1970s, Stepney went to Shadow in Formula 1 as a mechanic. There he met Elio de Angelis , whom he followed in 1980 as his racing engineer at Lotus . After de Angelis moved to Brabham in 1986, Stepney stayed at Lotus and worked with Ayrton Senna .
In 1988 Stepney went to Benetton , where he worked under his former Lotus team manager Peter Collins. In 1991, Stepney accepted an offer from Nelson Piquet to work in Formula 3000 in the newly formed Piquet Racing team . The team was unsuccessful and at the end of the year, Stepney moved to Ferrari as team coordinator at the request of John Barnard , whom he knew from his time at Benetton. He was released in 2007 in the wake of the Ferrari-McLaren espionage affair. He was accused of having passed on secret information from the Ferrari team to McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan .
After the end of his career in Formula 1, he worked from 2010 as chief engineer, team manager and technical director at JR Motorsports (JRM). Stepney led the development of the GT1 version of the Nissan GT-R , with which Michael Krumm and Lucas Luhr won the 2011 FIA GT1 World Championship . In 2012 he was chief engineer responsible for the Honda LMP1 prototype used by JRM in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) . After JRM left the WEC, he led the development of the GT3 version of the Nissan GT-R, the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3, with which the Nissan GT Academy Team RJN 2013 in the Blancpain Endurance Series and the FIA-GT Championship started .
On May 2, 2014, Stepney was killed in a car accident on the M20 near Ashford , Kent. He left a partner and daughter.
Individual evidence
- ^ Obituary for Nigel Stepney. (No longer available online.) JR Motorsports Group, May 2, 2014, archived from the original on May 3, 2014 ; Retrieved May 3, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Ex-Ferrari Formula 1 mechanic Nigel Stepney killed in a road accident ; autosport.com dated May 2, 2014
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stepney, Nigel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British chief mechanic and team coordinator in Formula 1 |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 14, 1958 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ufton , Stratford-on-Avon |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 2, 2014 |
| Place of death | at Ashford , Kent |