{"id":54833,"date":"2018-11-20T17:27:39","date_gmt":"2018-11-20T17:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/issue_content\/lunch-with-steve-nichols\/"},"modified":"2021-06-09T17:18:24","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T16:18:24","slug":"lunch-steve-nichols","status":"publish","type":"issue_content","link":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/archive\/article\/may-2018\/106\/lunch-steve-nichols\/","title":{"rendered":"Lunch with… Steve Nichols"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For a young boy growing up close to the Rocky Mountains, Formula 1 seemed impossibly remote. \u201cIn Salt Lake City we didn\u2019t have a proper circuit locally,\u201d says Steve Nichols. \u201cWhen I began competing in Formula Ford, the nearest track was probably 500 miles away and a return trip to Seattle was more than 1600. Everything was a long way off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Distance, though, couldn\u2019t dilute the ambition fired by a 1962 copy of\u00a0Road & Track<\/i>. \u201cIt was headlined \u2018Chapman\u2019s tubeless wonder\u2019 and was all about the new Lotus 25. Based purely on that, I decided I wanted to be an F1 designer.\u201d To hear how he got there, we repair to The Red Lion in Horsell, Surrey (it\u2019s owned by racer Anthony Hancock, father of acclaimed historic drivers Sam and Ollie), where Steve orders grilled fillet of sea bream, served with herb potato cake and smothered in parsley and caper cream sauce, before rewinding to his Utah roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of engineers don\u2019t mind what they work on or design,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I was the opposite. It started when I was at school \u2013 some kids had Vespa or Lambretta scooters, but I wanted a kart. My parents bought me one to use at a small track nearby and thought I\u2019d just potter around, but I really enjoyed it and did quite well. Because the karts were miniature road racers, it fired my interest in that side of the sport rather than NASCAR or drag racing, which my friends preferred. To me that meant Formula 1, so I set my goals accordingly and pursued a degree in mechanical engineering. I graduated in 1972, when F1 teams were still quite small. I didn\u2019t think anyone would hire a young, green engineer, so I found a job with Hercules, designing rocket motors for the Trident submarine missile system. I spent four years there and it was highly technical, lots of finite element analysis\u00a0and composite materials \u2013 and at that time carbon was almost unknown outside aerospace.<\/p>\n

\u201cA friend then pointed out an advertisement in\u00a0Autoweek<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 Gabriel was looking for an engineer to design racing dampers and hired me. I worked there for four years, initially on Indycars, then later on NASCAR and off-roaders. When I started, a mechanic said to me, \u2018You\u2019ve got the easiest job here, because dampers don\u2019t do anything.\u2019 I wasn\u2019t so sure about that\u2026 and teams soon discovered otherwise. At Indianapolis once, when you\u2019d be there the whole month, running all day almost every day, Al Unser had a problem because his car was unstable on turn-in. I kept saying, \u2018Look, I\u2019ve got these special dampers I think might be useful.\u2019 I\u2019d made a set with a lot more low-speed damping in bump and rebound and they finally said, \u2018Well, I guess we might as well try them.\u2019 They transformed things. The transient instability had gone and the car now gently melted into the corner \u2013 a nice, smooth experience and Al was immediately 10-15mph quicker. Suddenly, everyone became interested in dampers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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With Senna at McLaren<\/p>\n

\n Motorsport Images\/Sutton\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

It was during this time that he first met John Barnard.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’d designed Indycars for Parnelli Jones Racing before moving to Chaparral, and I designed the dampers for both. When he later moved back to England to work with Ron Dennis\u2019s Project Four on a new F1 car, I phoned to see whether he\u2019d be interested in hiring me. He was, so I took one month\u2019s leave and arrived in the UK to join him and Alan Jenkins \u2013 it was just the three of us, cheek by jowl in a tiny little drawing office just off Cherry Street, Woking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the ground-effect era, which meant narrow monocoques with long sidepods and a large underbody. The monocoques were quite flexible and John was interested in using new materials, to improve\u00a0stiffness. He was thinking about carbon fibre \u2013 but couldn\u2019t find anybodyin England to do the job, because it was considered too complicated. So I put him in touch with my former colleagues at Hercules, who wanted to expand their market beyond aerospace. It struck me that F1\u2019s global reach would be perfect \u2013 and they thought so, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only thing still missing was finance, but that was resolved when Dennis struck a deal for Project Four to take over McLaren \u2013 complete with its Marlboro backing \u2013 and in October 1980 Nichols returned to the UK on a full-time basis. \u201cI had much to learn in terms of mechanical design,\u201d he says, \u201cbut a lot of my previous experience transferred: composite materials, stress analysis, finite element analysis\u2026 my education stood me in good stead.<\/p>\n

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Nichols designed dampers for the John Barnard-designed Chaparral 2K, which Al Unser took to victory in the 1980 Indy 500<\/p>\n

\n Motorsport Images\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

\u201cFor a kid from the sticks to arrive in England\u2026 I thought it was just fantastic. John felt it was important for Alan and I to go to a few races each year, to get hands-on experience of what the car was actually like on the circuit. So here I was going off to Monza, Zandvoort and so on. When I worked on Indycars there would sometimes be a TV set in the paddock, showing an F1 race, and I was always thinking, \u2018I gotta be there,\u2019 so it really was a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

With its carbon chassis, the McLaren MP4\/1 set an F1 structural template that holds to this day. In John Watson\u2019s hands, the car recorded its maiden victory on home turf, in the 1981 British GP at Silverstone. \u201cThe pressure for John was immense,\u201d Nichols says. \u201cHe dragged Alan and I away from the pits to watch from the infield. It was almost a hide-behind-the-sofa moment, the fear that something was going to break. That was quite a day, but I don\u2019t recall there being any big parties. We\u2019d have been too busy stripping the cars down and thinking about Germany in a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then the cars got one hell of a lot of attention \u2013 not like now, with curfews and all that stuff. During race weekends they were stripped to more or less a bare monocoque almost every night, then crack-tested and screwed back together. Plus we\u2019d have a test between almost every race. You\u2019d go to Paul Ricard, start at 9am and still be running as it was starting to get dark. You\u2019d cover about 600km in a day, take the car apart, rebuild it, go to bed at perhaps 1am then start again at nine. It was tiring, but I never tired of doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson would be a title contender in \u201982, but the Cosworth DFV was running out of steam as a contemporary force and it wasn\u2019t until 1984 \u2013 the team\u2019s first complete campaign with the Porsche-designed TAG V6 Turbo \u2013 that the full force of Dennis-era McLaren was first felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cBar one or two minor run-ins, I always got on well with Ron,\u201d Nichols says. \u201cHe\u2019s a complex person and I know he can be difficult, but he was always very good with me. I\u2019d say to him, \u2018What about money?\u2019 and he\u2019d reply, \u2018I\u2019ll deal with that. You just make the car go fast. If I can\u2019t keep up I\u2019ll let you know.\u2019 He never did. Anything I wanted, he\u2019d find a way to do it. I once put in a purchase order for gear ratios to the tune of \u00a3250,000 and he asked, \u2018Do we really need these?\u2019 I told him we did, so he signed it off and that was it.<\/p>\n

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Having joined McLaren in 1980, Nichols worked on Barnard’s McLaren MP4\/1 \u2013 the first carbon F1 car. John Watson scored its maiden win at Silverstone<\/p>\n

\n Motorsport Images\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

\u201cI think he took F1 to a new level. He was a visionary. People sometimes laughed at his ideas, but he was the one who introduced Lista tool cabinets to the factory, so we all had a neat working space. Whenever it was time for the cars to be transported to a race, the cabinets would go, too. Everybody\u2019s workstation would be ready at the track for them. It\u2019s normal now, but he was the first to do it. I used to marvel at his sponsorship presentations, with videos, slides and music at a time when nobody else was doing that stuff. He wasn\u2019t just competitive at the track, it extended to every domain \u2013 anything he thought would strengthen our position.<\/p>\n

\u201cMcLaren had an image of being cold and clinical, because of Ron, but inside it was quite the reverse \u2013 the most family-like atmosphere I\u2019ve known in a racing team.\u201d<\/p>\n

During that 1984 season Nichols was race engineer to Niki Lauda, who pipped team-mate Alain Prost to the title by half a point. \u201cI was lucky to work with lots of really good drivers,\u201d he says. \u201cNiki, Alain and Ayrton Senna are the three who stand out, though. I couldn\u2019t believe just how good they were. I didn\u2019t imagine they could have been born like normal people \u2013 they must have descended to earth in a pillar of light, like aliens. They peaked at different times, but I really couldn\u2019t separate the three of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNiki\u2019s big thing was an unshakeable resolve. He was obviously a very good racing driver, could feel the balance of the car and all that stuff, but the outstanding thing was his iron will. If you look at \u201984, when we went to Dijon \u2013 about one third of the way into the season \u2013 he was already 15 points behind Alain. On our way to the track, he said, \u2018I\u2019ve been trying as hard as I can to beat this little French guy, but he is\u00a0so<\/i>\u00a0quick. He can take advantage of my set-ups and all that, but I can\u2019t take advantage of his speed. I am not going to give up, though \u2013 I am going to win this race and I am going to win this championship.\u2019 He was kind of setting himself up, but he did it. His determination was unreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlain was the most conventional of the three \u2013 he just seemed like an all-round nice guy who didn\u2019t complain. He worked very hard and was completely normal in every respect bar one \u2013 he was freakishly good in a racing car. Smooth, unruffled, incredible. I think dying young helped cement Ayrton\u2019s legend, but people forget just how good Alain was \u2013 at least as good as Ayrton, in my book. I was Ayrton\u2019s engineer at the end of the \u201980s and, for all that he and Alain were at it hammer and tongs, he really did respect him.<\/p>\n

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After leaving Ferrari, Nichols spent a short time with Sauber, before heading to Jordan<\/p>\n

\n Motorsport Images\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

\u201cAlain would always want to optimise the car \u2013 and Ayrton was the same. We\u2019d have set-up sheets with all these boxes for notes about toe-in, castor, wing settings and so on. Some drivers rarely changed things so you could complete half the sheet before they\u2019d arrived at the debrief, but with Ayrton you could barely fill in the air temperature. He wanted to talk through every box \u2013 and what effect changes would have at every corner. What\u2019s an alteration to left-front camber going to do under braking, on turn-in, in mid corner and at the exit of Turn One? The same again with Turn Two. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the lap was done, then move on to the next parameter. That would go on for two hours, but that\u2019s how he was. There were times when the car was very good \u2013 and he\u2019d still go through every single parameter. At the end of all that, he might say he was happy and not change anything, but he would consider every detail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Late during Prost\u2019s second title season, in 1986, Nichols stepped up to head McLaren\u2019s design team following Barnard\u2019s departure to Ferrari. \u201cI think it was obvious to all of us that John was talking to them,\u201d he says, \u201cand eventually Ron summoned him to his office, which was just above ours. We could hear the ructions\u2026 John departed in August, which left us slightly in the lurch. There was a hell of a lot I wanted to change, because although we\u2019d been successful I felt things had stagnated a little on the design front, and it wasn\u2019t easy to start afresh that late in the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen John left we had a staff of about 17 and needed to plan the MP4\/3 for \u201987, then shortly afterwards start work on the MP4\/4 to take the Honda turbo in \u201988, plus a test hack \u2013 an older chassis adapted to take the Honda \u2013 and then 1989\u2019s MP4\/5 plus a test version of the MP4\/4 to take the MP4\/5\u2019s naturally aspirated V10. That was a lot of cars in a fairly short period. We divided the staff into two teams, me looking after the MP4\/4 and Neil Oatley heading the MP4\/5. Gordon Murray came in as technical director in 1987 and he was great: he was mostly involved on the corporate side and just let us get on with it.<\/p>\n

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With Nichols back on board in a consultancy role in 1997, McLaren’s MP4\/12 \u2013 it’s final design of the pre-Newey era \u2013 scored the team’s first wins since 1993<\/p>\n

\n Motorsport Images\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

\u201cWith the MP4\/3 I encouraged everyone to contribute ideas, because I felt using our collective brainpower would give us a better car. It wasn\u2019t all we hoped for, but was the best we could do in the time available and good enough to win three races, so for the MP4\/4 we just did the things we\u2019d like to have done on the previous car with more time. It had a smaller Tilton carbon clutch that allowed for a lower engine installation and we were very happy with the aerodynamics we\u2019d achieved with the MP4\/3, so the sidepods were grafted straight from that. It was bigger and bulkier in the middle, due to the engine\u2019s size, there were two big wastegates sticking out at the back and the fuel tank was 175 litres rather than 150. The frontal architecture had to change, because that was the first year in which a driver\u2019s feet had to be behind the axle, so we went to a pull-rod front suspension and moved the dampers back. It was the first time we\u2019d made a car with a proper, non-ground-effect monocoque, which was bigger, squarer and much stiffer than that on the MP4\/3. But the design philosophy for the two cars was\u00a0exactly<\/i>\u00a0the same \u2013 to find the best combination of low centre of gravity, low polar moment, low drag and high downforce. People used to ask about the secret of the MP4\/4, but there was no secret. It was just well engineered in every area.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it was strapped to a Honda V6.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonda had some fantastic engineers and nothing was too much trouble. Their work ethic was phenomenal. We\u2019d go over to Tokyo, land late at night and they\u2019d greet us at their technical centre, ready to talk for a couple of hours, after which they\u2019d want to go out for a drink. It\u00a0wasn\u2019t just F1, either. At 11pm the place would be absolutely buzzing, with\u00a0people working on lawnmowers, outboard engines and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1988 the MP4\/4 came as close as any car has yet done to completing a clean sweep \u2013 and that was prevented only by Senna tripping over Jean-Louis Schlesser\u2019s Williams while trying to lap it at Monza. Has Nichols forgiven the Frenchman? He laughs. \u201cIt was probably a good thing for the sport, because winning every Grand Prix is something to which teams can still aspire!\u201d<\/p>\n

The following year, during the course of another acrimonious duel with Senna (from which he emerged with his third title), Prost decided the time had come to move on. \u201cHe called me up to his room in Adelaide and asked if I\u2019d go with him to Ferrari,\u201d Nichols says. \u201cRon, meanwhile, had this idea of Neil Oatley and I producing alternate cars, as we had with the MP4\/4 and MP4\/5. I disagreed with that philosophy and told him I wanted to apply all our brainpower to every car. But Ron didn\u2019t want that, Ferrari was offering a lot of money and Alain was keen for me to go, so\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The man he replaced was the Benetton-bound Barnard.<\/p>\n

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Following his second spell with McLaren, Nichols moved on to Jaguar, with fellow FF2000 aficionado Eddie Irvine<\/p>\n

\n Motorsport Images\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

\u201cBefore I went [former Ferrari technical director] Harvey Postlethwaite had a word with me and said, \u2018You realise they won\u2019t let you do what you want?\u2019 I\u2019d thought that\u2019s why<\/i>\u00a0they were hiring me, but he was right. It\u2019s an odd place, full of intrigue \u2013 and politics. There\u2019s such pressure. It was a fantastic experience, and I enjoyed it, but it was a dream and a nightmare all at the same time. Lots of drivers say they want to drive for Ferrari, but I never thought \u2018I must work for Ferrari.\u2019 I just wanted to work for teams with sufficient resources to allow me to do the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was actually quite hard to get good staff. Everyone in Italy wanted to work for Ferrari and we\u2019d have all these young engineers, some of them good and some less so, but they were paid peanuts and the better ones would eventually move on while the not-so-good ones would be there a long time. I told them they needed to change, that I\u2019d come from a team that always did everything almost perfectly and that we needed to model ourselves on that. They said, \u2018You need to adapt.\u2019 They seemed to think that hiring Prost and I would do the trick \u2013 bish, bash, bosh, done. It doesn\u2019t work like that. I was looking at a five-year plan, but they wanted to win straight away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was interesting that several years later they hired Jean Todt, Michael Schumacher, Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne, with Todt as a firewall, handling all the shit while the rest of them got on with it, not caring a jot for Italian politics. Even after that it took them a few years to win a title \u2013 that\u2019s the kind of structure I\u2019d been telling them to implement, but they wouldn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He moved on early in 1992, after \u201can interesting\u201d interlude working alongside Prost and Nigel Mansell. \u201cNigel was fantastically fast and brave,\u201d he says, \u201cbut he viewed me as Prost\u2019s man and didn\u2019t seem to trust me. While I was there we developed the first launch control \u2013 we\u2019d been qualifying quite well, but kept losing positions at the start. Prost tested the system and it worked, so we took it to the next race \u2013 Estoril 1990. We explained it all to Nigel, who was on pole, but he decided that it wasn\u2019t launch control but a \u2018screw Nigel\u2019 button and switched it off. He then got too much wheelspin, slithered over in front of Alain and allowed both McLarens to get ahead!<\/p>\n

\u201cIn testing, Nigel would like to do a race distance \u2013 which suited us \u2013 and once he\u2019d finished would ask to do a run or two on qualifiers. Alain would work all day on set-up, then Nigel would do this spectacular time.\u00a0Luigi Mazzola, Prost\u2019s engineer, would say, \u2018Alain, Nigel is fast \u2013 you need\u00a0to do a quick lap.\u2019 He\u2019d say, \u2018Why? We have proper work to do.\u2019 Luigi would reply, \u2018You need to do it to prevent the team gravitating towards Nigel.\u2019 Alain would roll his eyes, stick on qualifiers, go a few tenths quicker then come back in and say, \u2018Can we get back to work now?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Alain Prost invited Nichols to join him at Ferrari in 1990. There were race wins but the title was elusive. And politics didn’t help…<\/p>\n

\n Motorsport Images\n <\/p>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

How did Nichols feel after Suzuka 1990, when his former charge Senna torpedoed Prost at the first turn to secure the title? \u201cSad,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause Ayrton let himself down that day. He didn\u2019t need to do it, because he was going to win the championship anyway, but he was a friend before the incident and remained so afterwards. Friends do sometimes make mistakes\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From Ferrari he moved on to Sauber, in what amounted to a job swap with Postlethwaite. \u201cIt seemed like a relatively rational environment, but I found the attitude similar to that at Ferrari. \u2018This is how we do things\u2026\u2019 Peter Sauber wanted to support local industry, which was fine, but if you took the most expensive carbon supplier in England, it was still 30 per cent cheaper than anywhere in Switzerland. That made things quite hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

After leaving and spending most of 1993 away from the paddock, he returned the following year with Jordan. \u201cThat was quite interesting. [Technical director] Gary Anderson was master of the small team \u2013 limited people, limited resources, doing lots of stuff himself. He and [engine builder] Brian were like peas in a pod, both very hands-on. It was a great group \u2013 and got fantastic results given the resources. During my year there I think we had a budget of $30 million, but probably spent 40\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

During all this time Nichols had remained in touch with McLaren\u2019s Martin Whitmarsh, the pair meeting occasionally to chat over a drink. \u201cWe\u2019d talked about my returning, but when they were doing well he\u2019d say, \u2018We\u2019re OK, we don\u2019t need you.\u2019 Then, when they were doing poorly, it would be; \u2018I don\u2019t want you coming back to sort it out \u2013 we want to do it ourselves.\u2019 He eventually called me in mid-1995, when they were at a particularly low ebb, and hired me as a general consultant.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCompared with the MP4\/4, on which every detail was optimised, that season\u2019s MP4\/10 was the absolute opposite \u2013 everything was so wrong. You want high downforce, it had low downforce. You want low drag, it had high drag. You want a stiff monocoque, it flexed. I set about instilling the ethos that had been there when I\u2019d left \u2013 make it light, low, stiff, get back to basics. We made progress over the next couple of years, won three races in 1997 and got to the point where the biggest deficit we had was aero. Ron being Ron, he pursued the holy grail and got Adrian Newey. He came to us, did his aero work, did some good packaging work around the front suspension \u2013 he properly understands the importance of aero and mechanical integration \u2013 and set us on the right track for the late 1990s. <\/span>Initially we collaborated well, but after a <\/span>while I got the sense that Adrian wanted me out of the way \u2013 he preferred a clear run at everything, so he didn\u2019t have to worry about what I wanted mechanically.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nichols was given a new role within McLaren Composites, not quite his cup of tea, and then answered a call from Jaguar. \u201cI was told they wanted to build a $400m factory at Silverstone, have an unlimited budget and all of that,\u201d he says, \u201cbut then much of [team parent] Ford collapsed and the management wanted to forget about racing and concentrate on making Focuses and Fiestas. The budget was capped at $150 million, but they wanted to reduce it each year and rely on outside sponsorship.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the money we had, about $50m was immediately allocated to Cosworth, then another $15m to Pi Electronics, then another $15m or so on drivers. We were haemorrhaging cash: I didn\u2019t want to know where every last dollar was going, but I was keen to know where every\u00a0million<\/i>was going. They wondered why weren\u2019t doing so well, but we had about $60m to spend on the car and needed to compare ourselves with other teams in that position \u2013 so Sauber rather than Ferrari. We were spending money left, right and centre; Sauber was giving Ferrari $20m or $30m a year and getting the engine, the electronics, the gearbox, the whole rear suspension. That was my kind of deal, to allow scope for chassis development. Nobody seemed to understand. It was a case of, \u2018We\u2019re Ford, we should be winning\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He left early in 2002 \u2013 and hasn\u2019t worked in F1 since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been pursuing hobbies and working on various projects,\u201d he says, \u201cincluding a small engine to use as a range extender in hybrids and an Elva-McLaren M1-style track day car \u2013 tube frame, big American V8. If that works out there might be spin-offs.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he also still races, driving a Nissan 260ZX in historic enduros in the States and, from this summer, he\u2019ll be back in the FF2000 Van Diemen RF82 he has owned from new. \u201cIt was the last RF82 off the production line,\u201d he says. \u201cIn period I did the BBC Grandstand series, stuff like that, and it is now obviously eligible for historic events. I haven\u2019t driven it for 15 years or so, though, after a shunt at Spa. It was the last lap of practice and I was coming up to pass a slower car at Blanchimont. I trusted that the driver would see me, but they didn\u2019t\u2026 It got quite badly bent and restoration has taken a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t ever want to discuss my racing with our drivers \u2013 I felt almost embarrassed, given the level they were at, but weirdly it seemed to give them a bit more respect. David Coulthard often brought it up during debriefings. He\u2019d be talking about something and then say, \u2018It\u2019s just like such and such a corner would be in your FF2000\u2026\u2019 Eddie Irvine reckoned FF2000 was the last category he\u2019d contested in which the cars had truly been fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me it was a bit of a release \u2013 no development or testing, no need to worry about anything \u2013 just get in and drive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quite a contrast, then, to the day job.<\/p>\n

\n<\/section>\n
career in brief<\/i><\/p>\n

Born 20\/2\/1947, Salt Lake City, USA<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

1972<\/b>\u00a0Joins Hercules Aerospace; buys Merlyn Mk11A to compete in FF1600\u00a0<\/b>1976<\/b>\u00a0Moves to Gabriel to work on Indycar dampers\u00a0<\/b>1980\u00a0<\/b>Recruited by McLaren as senior design engineer\u00a0<\/b>1987<\/b>\u00a0MP4\/3 is the first McLaren credited to Nichols\u2019 technical leadership\u00a0<\/b>1988<\/b>\u00a0Race engineer to world champion Ayrton Senna\u00a0<\/b>1990-1992<\/b>\u00a0Chief designer, Ferrari\u00a0<\/b>1992-93<\/b>\u00a0Sauber\u00a0<\/b>1994<\/b>\u00a0Jordan\u00a0<\/b>1995<\/b>\u00a0Head of vehicle engineering, McLaren\u00a0<\/b>2001<\/b>Technical director, Jaguar\u00a0<\/b>2002<\/b>\u00a0Quits Jaguar early in the year\u00a0<\/b>2002-present<\/b> Freelance technical consultant & designer; keen amateur racer<\/b><\/p>\n<\/section>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"author":751,"featured_media":636849,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[128229],"tags":[167,194],"issue_decade":[121600],"issue_year":[121673],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/issue_content"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54833"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636862,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54833\/revisions\/636862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54833"},{"taxonomy":"issue_decade","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_decade?post=54833"},{"taxonomy":"issue_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_year?post=54833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}