People

Derek Gardner

A designer of advanced transmission systems, Gardner came to Formula 1 while working for Harry Ferguson Research on four-wheel drive systems for Matra in 1969. This led to a meeting with Ken Tyrrell and in 1970 Tyrrell picked Gardner to secretly design the first Tyrrell chassis. This was put together in the garage at his house and appeared in August 1970 but was not raced until the Canadian GP. Jackie Stewart put the car on pole on its debut and led until a stub axle failed. The car was then developed into the Tyrrell 003 and Stewart and Francois Cevert won seven wins between them in 1971. Stewart won the DriversÕ World Championship and Tyrrell took the ConstructorsÕ title. The opposition responded in 1972 and Stewart was beaten to the World Championship by Emerson Fittipaldi but still managed to score four wins but in 1973 developments of the car were once again very successful and Stewart won five times and took the DriversÕ title although Lotus won the ConstructorsÕ after Tyrrell withdrew from the United States GP following the death in practice of Cevert. Stewart then decided to retire and the team picked up Jody Scheckter and Patrick Depailler for the 1974 season and Gardner designed the Tyrrell 007 which enjoyed some success that year. Gardner went on to design the radical Tyrrell six-wheeler in 1976 but in the middle of 1977 he decided he had had enough of Formula 1 and left to become the divisional director of engineering and research at the Borg-Warner clutch company.