F1 Technical Director

The technical director’s job is part-managerial, part-technical. He invariably is a former designer or aerodynamicist, but he rarely gets a chance to actually design stuff in his role as technical director. The technical director is a rare breed: a nutty professor with a core of steel and a real flair for organisation. He sets design objectives and targets and ensures that they are met. He could just as easily be sourcing a new material and going to the team boss for budget approval as he could be brain-storming on an aerodynamic problem. In many ways the technical director is the key to the success or failure of a team. Without a fast car, a team goes nowhere.

Without the technical organisation and a technical director’s guidance, a team is never going to come up with a fast car. Much of the great Ferrari turnaround of fortunes from sad underachievers in the early 1990s to record-breaking world beaters a decade later has been attributed to the organisational and technical knowledge of Ross Brawn, the team’s technical director since 1997. Because of his crucial role in the success or failure of the team, a technical director can command a very big salary – sometimes higher than the driver. A ballpark figure is around $2 million per year, though one technical director is rumoured to make as much as $8 million. But taking the big bucks means he must deliver. This isn’t a job for those looking for long-term employment security.

An engine supplier also has its own technical director, ensuring its Formula One programme’s technical progress runs smoothly. In those teams that build their own engines, the team’s technical director also has reporting to him the chief of engine design. So complex is the whole business that there can be two levels of technical management above the guy who actually designs the chassis or engine.
Chief designers, aerodynamicists, and research and development bosses all report to the team’s technical director. The following sections explain their roles on a Formula One team.