Pat Symonds - The seasoned veteran

©XPB Images & Wri2

©XPB Images & Wri2

ONLY ONE FIGURE AT THE HELM?

Although the FIA’s tight restrictions on windtunnel and CFD testing aim to create a more level-playing field, the top teams can still rely on a bigger workforce. In these structures, the prerogatives of the technical director are usually split between several senior engineers, following an organisation chart actually devised by Symonds during his Enstone days.

“The role of technical director in a Formula 1 team does vary depending on the team,” he continued. “Something you see now in the bigger teams is actually something we started at Renault when I was there, which is to have more than one technical chief. Because if you go back many years to when the teams were, say, 300 people, it was quite easy to have one technical chief who could keep on top of everything.

“As the teams grew to up to 500-plus people, and now we have seen some teams of 700, there is no way that one technical person could look after everything. So you get the extreme of Mercedes with Paddy Lowe [who just left the team], Geoff Willis, Aldo Costa, and previously Bob Bell, they split it up quite a lot.

At Williams, we only have one technical chief, even though we are a 500-person Formula 1 team, so it’s been actually a really difficult job for me, more difficult than it was when I was at Renault, I’d say.”

It seems evident that a single person cannot be leading half a thousand people and attending all 20-odd races scheduled on the F1 calendar in the mean time. That’s why Symonds had Rob Smedley on site, ensuring a smooth feedback from the trackside operations back to the factory where the elder engineer was based.

Symonds has managed to turn his childhood dream of designing cars into a professional reality, but that does not necessarily mean spending his days hunched over a drawing board à la Adrian Newey. Instead, he has been coordinating teams of experts while always keeping the bigger picture in mind.

To continue Symonds’ orchestra metaphor, the musicians must play the tune harmoniously under the leadership of the conductor, whose processes and procedures make the pursuit of simultaneous goals possible.

“I’m very much a process-driven person. I want to understand how and why the engineers arrive at a racing car. Then, you look at where the processes need improving. It is applying science. The very first day I arrived at Grove, I spoke to all the staff and I said ‘We are going to make sure our engineering has integrity. We are going to do what we believe in, we’re going to make sure what we say is true.’

“You might say that that is an easy statement to say, but it takes quite a lot to get people thinking that way. Now, a lot of what I do is at a very personal level. I spend a lot of my time in meetings at the factory. If I am at races, I’m not doing things at the factory. That’s why I don’t go to every race.”

©XPB Images & Wri2

©XPB Images & Wri2