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On Wednesday 22 May, Lancing College pupils, OLs and staff were treated to a private lecture from Chief Technical Officer at Williams Racing Formula 1 team, and Lancing College parent, Pat Fry.
Pat's lecture inspired the audience, many of whom are looking to study engineering at university, to look for careers within motorsport. He detailed career highlights and explored the immense advancements within Formula 1 throughout his almost four-decade long career in the sport. Speaking through each of his roles at a wide variety of Formula 1 teams, including McLaren and Ferrari, Pat’s lecture illustrated the innate vastness of a career in motorsport.
From partnering with athletes as a Race Engineer to leading high performing teams to develop and deliver results in high pressured environments, Pat’s career in Formula 1 has been phenomenal. It was an absolute pleasure to host him as the final Head Master’s Lecture speaker in our special 175th Lecture series.
In This Article
This article will outline the key points and advice that Pat shared during his lecture, first summarising his impressive career and the roles he has undertaken, then sharing his insights on building, maintaining and leading high-performance teams. The article will also detail some additional information about careers within Formula 1 . Head of School, Alex M, completes this article with his message of thanks to Pat Fry from the lecture itself.
Pat Fry’s Career in Formula 1
Pat Fry’s staggering career in Formula 1 spans nearly four decades and has influenced some of the best racing teams, multiple Driver’s Championships and advancements in driving technology and safety.
Benetton Formula, 1987—1993
His trajectory began at Benetton Formula in 1987. Pat’s knack for innovation and his ability to thrive under pressure quickly became evident. Within his role at Benetton, Pat Fry worked to develop Active Suspension Systems.
As a young engineer wanting to learn, I hated the empirical approach. You must be able to prove things. You must be able to model it. You must be able to solve it. Where the car is so complicated, it then forces you to develop simple models of suspension and simple models of aerodynamics which you can then use to work out what it is you want to do.
Pat Fry
McLaren, 1993—2010
After six successful years at Benetton, Pat moved on to McLaren Racing in 1993. During his tenure there, he played a crucial role in the development of several race-winning cars, contributing to three of the team’s championship victories. These include the first of Hamilton’s seven Drivers' Championships in 2008 as well as two for Mika Häkkinen in 1998 and 1999.
His initial position was to work on Active Suspension Systems however these were banned by the sport’s governing body, the FIA, before the start of the 1994 season. Interestingly, the sport is still discussing the importance of Active Suspension Systems with Mercedes’ George Russell publicly calling for their return.
Pat then moved to an engineering position in the McLaren race team. Perhaps one of his most notable achievements was his work on the MP4/13, which secured the 1998 Driver's World Championship for Mika Häkkinen, with Pat being a key player in the design and development of the car’s chassis and aerodynamics as the team’s Senior Engineer.
In 2002, he was promoted to the role of Chief Engineer of Race Development and was responsible for several era-dominating cars, including the MP4-20 and the MP4-22. Both cars won Autosport’s Racing Car of the Year in 2005 and 2007, respectively. During this role, Pat also oversaw the development of the MP4-23, the car that Hamilton drove to his first World Championship victory in 2008.
Scuderia Ferrari, 2010—2014
After nearly two decades and a cornucopia of engineering success at McLaren, Pat moved to Scuderia Ferrari in 2010, arguably the most iconic team in Formula 1 history. At Ferrari, Pat took on the role of Assistant Technical Director, overseeing the technical aspects of the car's development.
His time at Ferrari was marked by a relentless pursuit of excellence and innovation, helping the team remain competitive at the highest levels of the sport. Pat’s ability to manage and lead engineering teams was instrumental in Ferrari’s 50 podium finishes during his tenure.
Manor Racing, 2016—2017
After his successful stint at Ferrari, Fry took on a new challenge at Manor Racing. Unfortunately, Manor Racing was unable to secure its position in subsequent seasons and entered administration in 2017, reflecting the often volatile nature of Formula 1.
McLaren, 2018—2019
Returning to McLaren in 2018, Fry led the development of the 2019 car, the MCL34. The best result that year was at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix when Carlos Sainz Jr finished third, marking McLaren’s first podium finish since the 2014 Australian Grand Prix. Furthermore, the team secured fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship that season; their best finish in seven years.
Renault/Alpine, 2020—2023
In February 2020, Pat joined the Alpine F1 Team as Chassis Technical Director and later became Chief Technical Officer in February 2022. In this role, he oversaw all technical activities at the Enstone-based team.
Williams Racing, 2024—
His vast experience and deep understanding of the sport eventually led him to his current role as the Chief Technical Officer at Williams Racing. At Williams, Pat continues to push the boundaries of engineering and technology, striving as part of the wider team to bring Williams Racing back to the front of the grid.
The Art of High Performance Teams
There is no other job where you receive continuous feedback week after week.
Pat Fry
One of the key themes of Pat Fry's lecture was the science of building and leading high-performance teams. Drawing from his extensive experience, Pat emphasised that the success of a Formula 1 team hinges not only on technical expertise but also on the synergy between its members. He shared that successful and high-performance teams rely on four things; People, Tools, Methodologies and Culture.
He recounted a story, of when he was asked to return to McLaren in 2018. The car was consistently underperforming, with the team struggling to make it out of the bottom four positions. Pat was given half a day to understand what was wrong and spent the following several months working with the team to figure why the car was performing the way it was.
“There was a tough decision to make. We were developing two front wing options – one was a safe banker whereas one was risky, it was almost ready. We sat there and had the conversation, and everyone, except me and one other guy, were saying the safe one. But we all knew the other option was much quicker, two tenths quicker.”
“It dawned on me that the actual fundamental problem was a culture, it was a fear. They were beaten up, pushed down, and they were all afraid of making a brave decision.”
Culture is fundamental. Success in Formula 1 is all about brave decisions and taking risks. Failure doesn’t matter. If things fail, you learn from it. If things don’t fail, you should be asking yourself ‘did you try hard enough?’ You’ve got to constantly be trying to push things forward. It is about trying to make that environment, where people feel empowered to speak up, as good ideas come from everywhere. So again, you want that environment where across departments you get a cross-fertilisation of ideas and teamwork. Once you get there, your development rates always take off.
Pat Fry on the importance of an empowering culture
Fulfilling Careers in Formula One
For those inspired by Pat Fry's lecture and considering a career in Formula 1, the path is both challenging and rewarding.
Beyond engineering, there are numerous other career opportunities within Formula 1 across a variety of disciplines. At Williams Racing, there are hundreds of staff members in departments including commercial, marketing, corporate, events and hospitality. There are graphic designers, not only responsible for eye-catching (and lightweight) liveries but also the design of the pit key and the style of the garage. Other key business functions include finance, human resources and legal.
We have even got two people just in TikTok. I am not sure what that is, but I am sure they do an excellent job.
Pat Fry
Pat jested that if he couldn’t convince the audience to become engineers, that there are plenty of remaining opportunities within Motorsport, and at Williams Racing, for whatever one may be interested in.
Read More: Advent Term Careers Events Success
Message of Thanks from Head of School, Alex M
As with all our external speakers, we are extremely grateful to them for giving their time to educate and share their experience and expertise with Lancing College pupils. We stress this gratitude at the end of each lecture with an exceptional member of the College community providing a gift and message of thanks to our speakers.
For Pat Fry's lecture on the exhilarating world of Formula 1, Alex M, Upper Sixth, took to the floor to share his appreciation,
"That was a captivating talk, and I am sure that everyone here really enjoyed hearing about your first-hand experience of some fundamental shifts we’ve seen in Formula 1 over the past couple of decades.
It’s been really interesting to hear your insight into the diversity of careers available in Formula 1 teams these days, including even TikTok now. It was also great to hear about the importance of culture in high performance teams.
I personally plan on studying engineering at university. I found it particularly interesting when discussing your time at Ferrari and employing an iterative process of taking your CFD model, running it in the wind tunnel, then using the data to refine the model.
On behalf of everyone here today, I’d like to say thank you. Mr Oliver has already mentioned you have been incredibly generous with your time and I guess the last thing for me to say is good luck at Monaco this weekend."
Williams’ Alexander Albon went on the score the first points for Williams this season at the Monaco Grand Prix. Whilst we cannot say for certain Lancing College is the team’s lucky charm, we are more than happy to speculate on this occasion.
Read More
Head Master's Lecture Series
On 20 September, we hosted the first of our 175th Anniversary Head Master’s Lectures series and welcomed the Professor Mary Ann Lund to share her lecture, How to be Melancholy: A Journey through a Renaissance Disease of the Mind. You can read about her lecture and watch the recording here.
Lancing College Careers
Advent Term Careers Events Success: Read about our Careers Fair and Careers in Depth sessions
Lancing College Careers and Futures: Learn all about the Lancing College My Futures Programme
Are you interested in contributing to our Careers offering at Lancing College? We host several careers sessions throughout the year, from mock interview practice to university and careers fairs. We are always delighted to welcome back OLs and parents who are willing to contribute to these sessions. If you're interested in getting involved, please contact Abi Pelham, PA to the Marketing, Admissions, and Development team here.