Patrick Head

Head in the Williams pit during the 1993 South African Grand Prix

**Patrick Michael Head**, (born 5 June 1946) is a British motorsport executive who is the co-founder of the Williams Grand Prix Engineering Formula One team. Head is technical director at Williams Grand Prix Engineering, and responsible for many innovations within Formula One.

## Early career

Patrick Head was born into motor sport, his father Michael racing Jaguar sportscars in the 1950s, and was privately educated at Wellington College. After leaving school Head joined the Royal Navy, but soon realised that a career in the military was not how he wanted to spend his life and so left to attend University, first in Birmingham and later, after failing his first year exams, at UCL.

Head graduated in 1970 with a Mechanical Engineering degree and immediately joined the chassis manufacturer Lola in Huntingdon. Here he formed a friendly relationship with John Barnard, whose Formula One designs for McLaren, Benetton and Ferrari would later go on to compete against Williams.

Head was involved in a number of new projects all trying to become established as car builders or engineering companies and it was during this period that Head and Frank Williams met. Finally becoming disillusioned by his lack of success Head quit motor racing to work on building boats, but was lured back by Williams to join his team, which Head did during 1975.

In 1976, thirty-four-year-old Frank Williams decided that the time was right to re-form his own team and promptly set about luring Head back into Formula One. After one abortive attempt, on 8 February 1977 Williams Grand Prix Engineering was founded with Williams and Head taking seventy and thirty per cent of the company respectively. In 1977 the team raced a customer March chassis, but in 1978, with backing from Saudia and having signed Australian driver Alan Jones, the Head-designed FW06 made its first appearance. Despite having no money, and with Williams himself frequently forced to conduct business from a telephone box, Head still managed to design a respectable car.

The following season Williams scored 11 world championship points finishing 9th in the constructors championship and from here momentum began to build. As early as the fourth round of the 1979 season Jones made the team's first visit to the podium. The same year saw a Head-designed car take the first of several race wins when Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Four more victories followed in 1979 and Head was now an established Grand Prix car designer.

## 1980s

Head's 1980 car was the class of the field, taking Alan Jones and the team to both titles, and securing Williams as a front runner. More success followed in the 1980s and Head began to move away from designing the cars himself, effectively creating a role of Technical Director, a person who oversaw the processes of design, construction, racing and testing, bringing together all the different disciplines. Frank Dernie took over as chief designer. During the 1980s he is also credited with many revolutionary concepts including a six-wheeled car, which tested in 1982, and continuously variable transmission, which replaced the car's conventional gearbox and allowed the engine to remain at optimum RPM during the entire lap. Neither system made it into racing due to rule changes, which many attribute to pressure from other teams, who were worried about the time required to develop similar systems of their own.

In 1986 Head, with other Williams management, was forced to assume control of the team when Frank Williams was seriously injured in a road accident. Despite this diversion, and under Head's temporary stewardship, the team still secured the constructors titles in 1986 and 1987.

## Notes

1. ↑ Taylor, Simon (March 2012). Lunch with... Patrick Head. Motor Sport Magazine.