Pat Symonds
Pat Symonds | |
|---|---|
 Symonds in 2015 | |
| Born | Patrick Bruce Reith Symonds 11 June 1953 Bedford, England, United Kingdom |
| Education | Masters in Vehicle Dynamics |
| Alma mater | Cranfield University Oxford Polytechnic |
| Years active | 1980s–present |
alma_mater which should be merged with/replaced by education.alma_mater, education.Patrick Bruce Reith Symonds (born 11 June 1953) is a British motor racing engineer who is the executive engineering consultant for the Cadillac Formula One team. He was the Chief Technical Officer at Williams Grand Prix Engineering from 2013 until 2016, having previously worked at the Toleman, Benetton, Renault, and Virgin/Marussia Formula One teams. Until May 2024, he was the Chief Technical Officer of Formula One.
Symonds began his career in lower motorsport categories before he joined Toleman in the early 1980s. After a brief move to the abortive Reynard Formula One project with then-chief designer Rory Byrne in 1991, he returned to Benetton. With a career spanning over three decades, Symonds was a key member of Team Enstone (first as Toleman, then as Benetton and Renault), where he led Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso to win four World Championships between 1994 and 2006. Overall, teams involving Symonds won four Drivers' titles, three Constructors' titles, and 42 Grands Prix (22 with Benetton and 20 with Renault).
In September 2009, Symonds was forced to resign from the Renault team due to his involvement in Crashgate, a race fixing at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. After the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) conducted its own investigation, Symonds was banned from operational roles in F1 for 3 years (although able to act in a consultative role) while Renault's Managing Director Flavio Briatore was banned indefinitely from any events sanctioned by the FIA, although both these bans were later overturned by a French Tribunal de Grande Instance.