A different perspective

From BRM to Lotus to the FIA, Peter Wright was one of the great F1 engineers. Shortly before his untimely death, Damien Smith met him at his off-grid home

- Damien Smith

He spent the best part of 30 years trying to make racing cars go faster, then the next quarter of a century striving to make them safer.

But Peter Wright, who died in November aged 79, was an understated figure who never sought the limelight despite being one of the most influential R&D motor sport engineers of his generation. We visited him at his home in July just four months before his untimely death.

Ostensibly we were going to talk to him about his recent book - How Did I Get Here? - but also to mine first-hand memories from a genuine polymath: his immense contribution to Lotus, for whom he shaped ground-effect aerodynamics in the 1970s, then pioneered active suspension in the 1980s, and his second racing life as a classic 'poacher-turned-gamekeeper' at the FIA which made him a key influencer on the modern drive for improved safety.

What we found was a man grappling with squaring the circle as he reflected on a long and fruitful life dedicated to motor sport, in a world for which he now feared.

Tributes poured in after his death was announced on November 6: the FIA called him “pioneering”; Mark Hughes dubbed him the “father of F1 ground effects”; Damon Hill said he “exuded genius”. As it turned out, this interview has become ours.