WHY BRINGING BACK THE ‘TOYS’ COULD MAKE F1 CLOSER

The ex-Lola and ex-McLaren Formula 1 engineer on why a return of sophisticated gizmos could help close up the grid

MARK WILLIAMS

The inspiration for this article came from an unlikely source. I had chanced upon an episode of Fifth Gear in which Jason Plato was doing a track test comparing an Audi and a Kia sports saloon. He commented that the Kia was let down by its ‘toys’. That’s a word we coined back in the late 1990s during my time on the McLaren Test Team for ‘Embedded Control Software’, and now ‘toys’ is a ubiquitous word in motorsport. McLaren had nicknames for most things, especially people: Shakey, Forks, WellHard, Flymo, to name just a few. It was a nightmare, as you rarely knew people’s proper names. In fact, someone added a search engine to MIDAS (McLaren Integrated Data Analysis Software) so you could search for people by their nickname simply to…

You're reading a preview of

Autosport (Digital) - 1 Issue, 14/03/19

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.