Peter Wright (automobile designer)

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Peter Wright (born May 27, 1946 ) is a British engineer , former racing car designer in Formula 1 and motorsport functional .

Life

Wright studied mechanical engineering at Trinity College , Cambridge . After completing his master's degree in 1967, he was hired by Tony Rudd , BRM's technical director . Wright worked for the British racing team for two years and then moved with Rudd to Specialized Moldings , a company that developed and manufactured plastic racing car parts. It was here that Wright gained four years of aerodynamics and composites experience .

Formula 1 with Lotus

The 1977 Lotus 78

Rudd then took over the management of the research and development department of the Formula 1 team Lotus and brought Wright to his team. He was responsible for the wind tunnel program and under Colin Chapman and Ralph Bellamy developed the Lotus 78 , the first Formula 1 ground-effect car. Wright had the idea of ​​inverted wing profiles as early as 1968 and passed it on to March . Robin Herd implemented the principle in the March 701 in the form of aerodynamically designed side boxes. By Gordon Murray , the idea of side skirts which seal the vacuum under the car came. Mario Andretti and Gunnar Nilsson won five races with the Lotus 78 in 1977 . In the successor model, the Lotus 79 , Andretti achieved six victories and the world championship in 1978 , while Ronnie Peterson won two races.

The Lotus 80 of 1979 did not drive the expected success and Wright moved to Lotus Engineering and worked there from 1983 to develop an active suspension . In 1988 he became managing director of Lotus Engineering .

In late 1990, Wright teamed up with Peter Collins , the former Lotus team manager, to take over Lotus. He worked for almost four years as technical manager to rebuild the team. In mid-1994, however, he left Lotus as the end of the team began to appear due to lack of funds.

Motorsport official at the FIA

In late 1994 he accepted an offer from Max Mosley for an advisory position in the FIA . Since then, he has worked as a technical advisor to the FIA ​​and is also President of the FIA ​​GT and Sports Car Commissions, the FIA ​​Safety Commission and the FIA ​​Commission for Environmentally Friendly and Sustainable Motorsport.

Fonts

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d "Peter Wright, research consultant" by FIA Institute ( Memento from November 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Wright, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British engineer
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1946