It was just a small side note, but it has great importance. Shortly after the pre-season testing session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona in February, Ferrari announced with a press release that they had extended the consulting contract of South African designer legend Rory Byrne (78) by three years.
Background: In 2020, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto brought his former boss out of his retirement in Thailand to provide the Ferrari engineering and design team with advice and support. From Thailand, where Rory Byrne runs a real estate business with his wife, he has been supplying Ferrari with his ideas ever since.
For ex-Formula 1 driver Marc Surer it is therefore clear: “The extension of the contract sounds like a huge thank you,” said the Swiss to F1-Insider.com – “Byrne seems to have done a super job in his role.”
Rory Byrne was already chief designer of Michael Schumacher’s world champion Benettons in 1994 and 95. He then followed the German to Scuderia Ferrari, where he designed five more world champion Ferrari cars for Michael. Since he used his experience for the development of Formula 1 racing cars available to the Scuderia, things have been looking up.
Surer: “It was noticeable that Ferrari already had a good chassis in 2021. But last year they were still limited by the weaker engine. That’s no longer the case this season.” The Swiss continued: “This year’s Ferrari has similar characteristics to those of the Schumacher-Ferrari cars from the successful era: They were fast everywhere and in all conditions, had great traction and always got the best out of the tires. That’s clearly Byrne’s signature.”
The numbers speak for themselves: after three races before the Scuderia’s home event in Imola on April 24, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc is clearly leading the world championship by 34 points over Mercedes driver George Russell with two wins, one second place and three fastest laps. In the constructors’ championship, Ferrari is just as superior with 39 points ahead of Mercedes.
In times of wind tunnels and complex computer simulations, the South African is considered a kind of Gyro Gearloose, like Red Bull designer Adrian Newey, who starts designing a car on a drawing board. But while Adrian Newey gets his best ideas in the shower, Byrne comes up with the technique tricks that make the difference while shaving.
Ex-Formula 1 driver Surer tells an anecdote about this: “In the early 1980s I was allowed to test the Toleman, which was designed by Rory Byrne. For thermal reasons, he had to move the radiators on the car. After that, the Toleman was half a second faster. Everyone wondered why. The next morning, an excited Rory Byrne came to the circuit. He was only shaved on one side of his face. While shaving, the answer came to him as to why the car was driving faster. This is Rory Byrne.”
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Ex-Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger is also certain that Byrne has a lot to do with Ferrari’s improvement. Today’s DTM boss said, as reported by F1 insider: “In his own way, Byrne is just as much a genius as Newey. In the 1980s, like today, we had big problems with so-called bouncing, the extreme jumping of cars on the straight. Rory Byrne was already working on the subject back then.”
It is noticeable that Mercedes loses a lot of lap time with the bouncing, but not Ferrari. Berger: “Byrne is a guarantee that the cars will remain at a top level throughout the season.”
In addition, it was certainly not a disadvantage that F1 technical director Ross Brawn and ex-Benetton technician Pat Symonds developed the radical car regulations for 2022. Both are old companions of Byrne, first working with him at Benetton and, in Brawn’s case, later at Ferrari. It would be natural to assume that as the rules were being developed, they would often consult Byrne as well.
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