This Day in Auto History 12.23.1959 Geoff Willis is born in Southampton, UK. Willis studied mechanical engineering at the famous Cambridge University and is a doctor of hydrodynamic engineering promoted at Exeter University. His debut in F1 came 1990 when he was hired by Leyton House Racing and became the first engineer to use computational fluid dynamics in F1 but the team was in a slide and he moved on to Williams where he continued to develop computational fluid dynamics methods and became increasingly involved with aerodynamic research alongside Adrian Newey and Egbahl Hamidy. With both Newey and Hamidy departing in the space of just a few months, he was appointed chief aerodynamicist at Williams in 1997 and worked with chief designer Gavin Fisher on all the cars up to the 2001 contender. Willis joined British American Racing in 2001, which was bought by Honda in 2005. Unhappy with Hondas unusual reporting structure he left the team later in the year. In July of 2007 Willis began working for Red Bull Racing as the teams Technical Director, once again under Newey. He left Red Bull in July 2009 for unknown reasons. Willis joined the new Hispania Racing F1 Team in March 2010. In September 2011 he left HRT, reportedly because the team hadnt assured him of necessary financial backing for designing the car for 2012 Formula One season and joined Mercedes as Technology director on 17 October 2011.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 12:30:00 +0000
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