People

Tim Wright

Wright studied mechanical engineering in London before getting the unusual job of designing ejector seats for British fighter aircraft with Martin Baker Ltd. After three and a half years in this curious business, Wright was recruited by Robin Herd of March Engineering as a design draughtsman. He spent a couple of years learning the trade and then moved on to become a member of Gordon Coppuck's design team at McLaren, the then World Champions. When Coppuck's team broke up in 1979 Wright then moved to Fittipaldi Automotive and but by 1982 he was back with Coppuck again as part of the Spirit-Honda F1 team.Having by then established a solid reputation he was taken back to McLaren at the end of 1983 by John Barnard and for the next seven years worked as a design engineer and as race engineer to Alain Prost. The relationship resulted in the Frenchman winning two World Championships in 1985 and 1986.Wright stayed on after Barnard left McLaren but in November 1990 he was lured away from F1 by Jean Todt to work for Peugeot Talbot Sport in sportscar racing. He engineered Derek Warwick to the World Sportscar Championship in 1992 and oversaw the the winning Peugeot of Warwick/Dalmas/Blundell in the Le Mans 24 Hours. When Peugeot decided not to enter F1 in the Spring of 1993 Wright went to work for Jordan with Thierry Boutsen, but he left the team at the end of that year to rejoin his old Peugeot Sport colleague Andre de Cortanze, who had moved on to become technical director at Sauber.At the end of 1995 Wright returned to England and took over the engineering of the Benetton test team.