Neil Oatley (born 12 June 1954) is a British design and development director in

Formula One Formula One (F1) is the highest class of worldwide racing for open-wheel single-seater formula Auto racing, racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The FIA Formula One World Championship has been one ...

teams.

Career

Born in Britain, Oatley graduated from

Loughborough University Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public university, public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university sinc ...

in 1976 with an automotive engineering degree. He worked briefly outside motor racing before joining the

Williams Williams may refer to: People * Williams (surname), a surname English in origin, but popular in Wales, 3rd most common in the United Kingdom * Williams Nwaneri, American football player Places Astronomy * Williams (lunar crater) * Williams ...

team in 1977. There he became one of many young engineers to have worked alongside

Patrick Head Sir Patrick Michael Head (born 5 June 1946) is a British motorsport executive who is the co-founder and former Engineering Director of the Williams Formula One team. For 27 years starting from the season, Head was technical director at Willia ...

early in their careers before moving on to other organisations. Oatley worked as a draughtsman before becoming a

race engineer A race engineer is a motorsport team member who analyses data to achieve the best performance from the vehicle and driver. The race engineer communicates with the team's data analyst, mechanics, and driver, both between and during races. Off the ...

for both

Clay Regazzoni Gianclaudio Giuseppe "Clay" Regazzoni (; 5 September 1939 – 15 December 2006) was a Swiss racing driver and broadcaster, who competed in Formula One from to . Regazzoni was runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in with F ...

and

Carlos Reutemann Carlos Alberto "Lole" Reutemann (12 April 1942 – 7 July 2021) was an Argentine racing driver and politician, who competed in Formula One from to and served as the Governor of Santa Fe from 1999 to 2003. Reutemann was runner-up in the Form ...

. In 1984 Oatley was recruited by

Carl Haas Carl Arthur Haas (February 26, 1929 – June 29, 2016) was an American auto racing impresario. He co-owned the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team in the Champ Car and IndyCar Series with Paul Newman and Mike Lanigan. He also owned Carl A. Haas ...

to work on the FORCE F1 project, but the results were poor, and the team withdrew from Formula One in . Oatley joined the

McLaren McLaren Racing Limited ( ) is a British auto racing, motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. The team is a subsidiary of the McLaren Group, which owns a majority of the team. McLaren is best known a ...

team shortly after leaving FORCE and worked alongside

John Barnard John Edward Barnard, (born 4 May 1946) is an English engineer and racing car designer. Barnard is credited with the introduction of two new designs into Formula One: the carbon fibre composite chassis first seen in with McLaren, and the sem ...

in the design office. After

Gordon Murray Ian Gordon Murray (born 18 June 1946), is a successful and influential South African-British former (Formula One) race-car designer, renowned firstly as lead designer for both the Brabham and McLaren Formula 1 racing teams, during 196 ...

replaced Barnard as technical director, Oatley was put in charge of the design of the naturally aspirated car for 1989— Steve Nichols having been appointed chief designer of the 1988 chassis—and remained chief designer after Murray moved to the new McLaren road car project. His cars secured titles in , , , and . Oatley continued to work as chief designer at McLaren until 2003, when he became executive director of engineering.

References

Profile at grandprix.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oatley, Neil Alumni of Loughborough University Formula One designers 1954 births Living people McLaren people English motorsport people Williams Grand Prix Engineering