Patrick Head
Patrick Head (born
June 5,
1945) in
Farnborough,
England, is co-founder and Engineering Director of the
Williams Formula One team.
For 25 years from
1977 Head was technical director at Williams Grand Prix Engineering, and responsible for many innovations within Formula One. Head oversaw the design and construction of Williams cars until May
2004 when his role was handed over to
Sam Michael. Frequently blunt and outspoken, Head has a formidable reputation for speaking his mind to both employees and the press, making him a highly popular figure in the sport.
Patrick Head was born into motor sport, his father racing
Jaguar sportscars in the
1950s, and was privately educated at
Wellington College. After leaving school Head joined the
Royal Navy, but soon realised that a career in the
military was not how he wanted to spend his life and so left to attend
University, first in
Birmingham and later in
Bournemouth. Head graduated in
1970 with a
Mechanical Engineering degree from
UCL and immediately joined the
chassis manufacturer
Lola in
Huntingdon. Here he formed a friendly relationship with
John Barnard, whose Formula One designs for
Benetton and
Ferrari would later go on to compete against Williams.
Head was involved in a number of new projects all trying to become established as car builders or engineering companies and it was during this period that Head and
Frank Williams met. Finally becoming disillusioned by his lack of success Head quit motor racing to work on building boats.
In
1976 thirty-four year old Frank Williams decided that the time was right to start his own team and promptly set about luring Head back into Formula One. After one abortive attempt, on
February 8 1977,
Williams Grand Prix Engineering was founded with Williams and Head taking seventy and thirty percent of the company respectively. In
1977 the team raced a customer
March chassis, but in
1978, with backing from
Saudi Airlines and having signed Australian driver
Alan Jones, the Patrick Head-designed FW06 made its first appearance. Despite having no money, and with Williams himself frequently forced to conduct business from a
telephone box, Head still managed to design a respectable car.
The following season Williams scored 11 world championship points finishing 9th in the
constructors championship and from here momentum began to build. As early as the fourth round of the
1979 season Jones made the teams first visit to the podium. The same year saw a Head designed car take the first of over one-hundred race wins at the
British Grand Prix. Four more victories followed in
1979 and Patrick Head was now an established
Grand Prix car designer.
Head's
1980 car was the class of the field, taking
Alan Jones and the team to both titles, and securing Williams as a front runner. More success followed in the
1980s and Head began to move away from designing the cars himself, effectively creating a role of Technical Director, a person who oversaw the processes of design, construction, racing and testing, bringing together all the different disciplines. During the 1980s he is also credited with many revolutionary concepts including a six wheeled car, which tested in 1982, and
continuously variable transmission, which replaced the car's conventional gearbox and allowed the engine to remain at optimum
RPM during the entire lap. Sadly neither system made it into racing due to rule changes, which many attribute to pressure from other teams, who were worried about the time required to develop similar systems of their own.
In
1986 Patrick Head, with other Williams management, was forced to assume control of the team when Frank Williams was seriously injured in a road accident. Despite this diversion, and under Head's temporary stewartship, the team still secured drivers and constructors tites in
1986 and
1987.
Many of the top engineers in
Formula One, such as
Neil Oatley,
Ross Brawn,
Frank Dernie,
Egbahl Hamidy,
Geoff Willis and
Enrique Scalabroni have worked under Head's supervision early in their careers, and all have moved on to senior positions within other teams.
Ross Brawn particularly has had success as Head's opposite number at
Ferrari. Perhaps the most fruitful of all his associations with upcoming engineers began in
1990 when Williams hired
Adrian Newey, recently sacked as technical director of
Leyton House. The two engineers rapidly formed the outstanding design partnership of the
1990s with Head/Newey cars achieving a level of dominance never seen before, and not repeated until the
Ferrari /
Schumacher era a decade later. In a seven year period between
1991 and
1997 Williams won four drivers and four constructors titles, and fifty-nine race wins.
Since the departure of Newey in
1996 Williams have often appeared a spent force, rarely able to win more than one or two races each year. Finally in
2004 came the news that Patrick Head was to stand down as technical director in favour of thirty-three year old
Sam Michael. Head's move to Engineering Director was widely seen as demotion and final acceptance by
Sir Frank Williams that he was no longer able to bring the team the level of success it had once enjoyed.
