Ralph Bellamy (engineer)

Ralph Bellamy (born February 4, 1938 ) is an Australian engineer and former racing car designer for Formula 1 .

The M14, Bellamy's first McLaren development

Bellamy came to Europe in the 1960s to work in motorsport. He accepted an offer from McLaren and designed the McLaren M14 alongside Gordon Coppuck in 1970 . After Coppuck switched to the Indycar series, Bellamy took over his post of chief designer and developed the McLaren M19A for the 1971 season .

In 1972 Bellamy moved to the Brabham team, which had been bought by Bernie Ecclestone . But Ecclestone passed development responsibility to Gordon Murray and Bellamy moved on to Lotus , where he built the 1973 Formula 2 car, driven by Emerson Fittipaldi and Ronnie Peterson . In 1976 Bellamy was part of the team that developed the Lotus 78, the first ground-effect racing car in Formula 1 history, alongside Colin Chapman , Peter Wright and Martin Ogilvie .

In 1978 Bellamy switched to Fittipaldi and designed the Fittipaldi F6 for the 1979 season . The following year he worked for Mo Nunn's Ensign team, where he and Nigel Bennett built the Ensign N180 for the 1980 season . In 1981 he followed Gordon Coppuck to March in the Indycar series, but then concentrated on the team's Formula 2 cars. The cars, however, were in the shadow of the Ralts . When Formula 2 was replaced by Formula 3000 , Bellamy constructed the March 85B, with which Christian Danner could become the first champion of the new series in 1985.

In 1986 Bellamy moved to Lola , where he initially worked again for Formula 3000, but then developed the Formula 1 car with Eric Broadley , which was used by the Larrousse team. He stayed with Lola until mid-1988 and then went back to March, where he was again responsible for the Formula 3000 cars.

In 1993 Bellamy retired to Australia, where he initially worked in the local touring car championship and later became chief engineer in Vern Schuppan's sports car team .

Web links

• Statistics of the Formula 1 cars designed by Bellamy