Andy Cowell: The mastermind behind F1’s best engine

TENACITY

Thomas Edison once said: “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Cowell, who believes there is no magic tricks in motor racing, shares the American inventor’s vision as he praises his colleagues’ talent and hard work.

“People are very dedicated to what they do, they’re enthusiastic. They are smart guys and girls, and they are pragmatic as well. There is a pragmatic approach to them, but equally there is a fairy tale side to them as well.

“They are quite happy to have crazy imagination about ‘wow if we could make it, if we come up with a machine that did this, the thermodynamics of the engine would be amazing, can we have a look?’

“And then we did have a look and we see what could be done. They don’t give up. There won’t be one good invention that would work right first time. Everything takes some perseverance, some tenacity, and some additional creativity to make it work. [It’s about] doing that without losing the performance goal. Sometimes people make things work but they have lost the performance goal by the time it is working.”

...AND CHANNELLED CREATIVITY

Creativity needs to be coordinated indeed, for F1 manufacturers are not research centres. As an iron hand in a velvet glove, Cowell oversees hundreds of engineers and synchronises their work around a common goal in a high-precision ballet where everyone must play his/her part.

“Technical development is a team effort, it is about setting a target, presenting a vision of where you want to go and including everybody in that journey. But engineers can be an unruly bunch: if you have got twenty engineers working for you, all twenty would like to do everything.

“I think engineers naturally want to be involved in everything, but you need to say: ‘Look, the power unit is a jigsaw puzzle, there are twenty of you, there are twenty pieces in this jigsaw puzzle. Which piece do you think you are the best to do?’ And it is then just making sure that everybody knows what their job is in the team, what they are responsible for, [making sure] they have got very good information about the people working around them.

“They are aware of what is going on elsewhere in the jigsaw puzzle, but they don’t need to be anything more than aware. For me, that’s how you get good productivity out of creative people.”

As the mastermind supervising Brixworth’s 450-strong engineering force, Cowell has fuelled and boosted Mercedes’ ascent to the top in collaboration with fellow senior technical figures Aldo Costa and Geoff Willis (earlier with Bob Bell, Ross Brawn, and Paddy Lowe as well).

2017’s aero revolution and its consequences on engine demands – bigger power outputs, longer periods of open throttle – loom as another summit to hike but the hill climb racing enthusiast inside Cowell is undeniably ready for the challenge.