Patrick Head, F1 Head of Engineering
Patrick Head is the co-founder and Director of Engineering for AT&T Williams. He is also a Director of Williams Hybrid Power Limited (WHP). Under Patrick's direction the team has been at the forefront of technological innovation in Formula One, including developments such as Active suspension, Semi Automatic gearboxes, and composite development.
Since co-founding the Williams F1 team in 1977, the tean has grown from a staff of 17 to over 500, and has won 9 constructors titles, 7 drivers titles, and 113 Grands Prix. This engineering brilliance doesn't come without a cost and when Patrick was Technical director, he was putting in 90 or 100 hours a week.
Eco-Rally guest driver Nico Hulkenberg is a rising star in AT&T Williams and Ross Brawn is one of several top engineers who worked under Head's supervision early in their careers.
The competitive rigour of Formula One requires quickly deployable solutions to technical problems, as well as ensuring any such solutions are lightweight, robust and high performance. WHP is building on Williams F1's Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) experience to transfer its technology to a variety of other applications.
“I am very much an engineer first and a racing fan second. I love motorsport, but I’m not really a petrolhead... if somebody else sorts out the tax and insurance and it always starts when you turn the key, that’s fine by me. If I wasn’t involved in motor racing, I suppose I’d probably be doing something nautical.” - Patrick Head
The Williams name has been synonymous with top-level motor racing since the 1960. It is also the first ‘sports and entertainment’ company to undergo full disclosure in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). CDP has become the recognised standard for carbon disclosure methodology and process, providing primary climate change data from 3,700 of the world’s largest corporations. Williams is now actively working to improve its measurement and reporting of its carbon footprint,and also to develop programmes to reduce its carbon impact.
