Nicholas John Peter Wirth (born 26 March 1966) is an automotive engineer and the founder and owner of Wirth Research. He is also the former owner of the

Simtek Simtek (Simulation Technology) was an engineering consultancy firm and Formula One racing team. The Formula One (F1) engineering consultancy arm, Simtek Research, was founded in 1989 by Max Mosley and Nick Wirth. It originally was involved i ...

Formula One team, a former aerodynamicist at

March March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 2 ...

and former technical director at the Benetton, and

Virgin Racing Virgin Racing (subsequently Marussia Virgin Racing) was a Formula One racing team which was under management of Manor Motorsport, Wirth Research and Richard Branson's Virgin Group and competed in with a List of Formula One constructors#Team's ...

teams.

Education and early life

Wirth attended

Sevenoaks School Sevenoaks School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school. It is co-educational, a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private boarding school, boarding and day school, located in Sevenoaks, Kent, England. Established in 1432, it ...

from 1977 to 1984 and has B.Sc(Hons) in Mechanical Engineering ( First Class) from

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

and is the youngest-ever Fellow of the Royal

Institution of Mechanical Engineers The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) is an independent professional association and learned society headquartered in London, United Kingdom, that represents mechanical engineers and the engineering profession. With over 110,000 member ...

March

Wirth started his Formula One career as an aerodynamicist for

March Engineering March Engineering was a Formula One constructor and manufacturer of customer racing cars from the United Kingdom. Although only moderately successful in Grand Prix competition, March racing cars enjoyed much better success in other categories ...

, working on the and Leyton House March cars. In addition, he conceived and designed all components of the March

active suspension An active suspension is a type of Suspension (vehicle), automotive suspension that uses an onboard control system to control the vertical movement of the vehicle's wheels and axles relative to the chassis or vehicle frame, rather than the conventi ...

system, which ran successfully in February 1989.

Simtek

Simtek Research was founded in 1989 by

Max Mosley Max Rufus Mosley (13 April 1940 – 23 May 2021) was a British businessman, lawyer and racing driver. He served as president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the Sport governing body, governing body for Formula One. A ...

and Nick Wirth. It originally was involved in many areas of Formula One, including wind tunnel construction and chassis building for third parties. Wirth was previously employed by March Team owner Mosley. From October 1993 to June 1995, Wirth was founder, owner, and technical director of Simtek Grand Prix, a Formula One racing team that first appeared in the 1994 Formula One season. Simtek Research provided the team with engineering and design for the cars. The team suffered the blow of the death of

Roland Ratzenberger Roland Walter Ratzenberger (; 4 July 1960 – 30 April 1994) was an Austrian racing driver, who competed in Formula One at three Grands Prix in . Born and raised in Salzburg, Ratzenberger began his racing career as a protégé of Walter Lechn ...

during qualifying for the

San Marino Grand Prix The San Marino Grand Prix () was a Formula One championship race which was run at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in the town of Imola, near the Apennine Mountains, Apennine mountains in Italy, between 1981 and 2006. It was nam ...

. Simtek suffered a difficult first season and eventually pulled out of Formula One during the season which forced Simtek Research into bankruptcy.

Benetton and projects outside Formula One

From 1996 until 1999 Wirth was chief designer and later a board member of the Benetton Formula One team. In 1999 Wirth founded RoboScience, and created the RS-01 RoboDog in 2001. In 2003 he founded Wirth Research. In 2006 Wirth Research began working for the FIA in the Casumaro windtunnel in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

on the split rear wing (CDG) design that the FIA proposed for the 2008 F1 season. In 2007 Wirth Research became involved with the

Acura Acura is the luxury and performance division of Japanese automaker Honda, based primarily in North America. The brand was launched on March 27, 1986, marketing luxury and performance automobiles. Acura sells cars in the United States, Canada, M ...

LMP programme in the

American Le Mans Series The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) was a sports car racing series based in the United States and Canada. It consisted of a series of Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance and sprint races, and was created in the spirit of the 24 Hours of Le M ...

and was involved with designing the LMP1 class car for 2009 season. Wirth used computational fluid dynamics extensively to design the LMP1 class car.

Virgin Racing

In 2009 Wirth Design teamed up with John Booth of

Manor Motorsport Manor Motorsport Ltd, currently trading as Manor Endurance Racing Ltd is a British motor racing company that was formed in 1990 by former single-seater champion John Booth. Manor has participated as a team in many motorsport disciplines since ...

to create a car for the 2010 Formula One season. Wirth was appointed the technical director of the team.

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...

's company Virgin became a title sponsor and the team was renamed

. The car that Wirth designed for use in the 2010 season, the

Virgin VR-01 The Virgin VR-01 was a Formula One motor racing car designed by Nick Wirth for Virgin Racing in the season. It was driven by former Toyota Racing (Formula One team), Toyota driver Timo Glock and Brazilian ex-2009 GP2 Series season, GP2 driver Lu ...

, is the first Formula One racing car designed entirely with

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid dynamics, fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required ...

with no use of traditional

wind tunnel A wind tunnel is "an apparatus for producing a controlled stream of air for conducting aerodynamic experiments". The experiment is conducted in the test section of the wind tunnel and a complete tunnel configuration includes air ducting to and f ...

s during the design or build process. Wirth also designed Virgin's second F1 car, the MVR-02, but its performance proved to be disappointing as it failed to close the gap to the leaders relative to the VR-01. In June 2011, Virgin announced that it had parted company with Wirth and abandoned its policy of only using CFD.

References

External links

Profile at grandprix.comProfile on the Virgin Racing website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wirth, Nick 1966 births Living people Formula One team owners Formula One team principals English engineers British mechanical engineers Formula One designers English motorsport people People educated at Sevenoaks School Benetton Formula