Pat Symonds: racing into F1's future
F1: Beyond The Grid
karenellenbevan
4.8 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2024
⏱️ 72 minutes
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Summary
Pat scored title wins with Michael Schumacher in the 90s and Fernando Alonso in the 2000s. In the 80s, he helped a rookie Ayrton Senna get up to speed and take a stunning Monaco podium. Today, as Formula 1’s Chief Technical Officer, his task is producing spectacular racing - now and for years to come.
Pat tells Tom Clarkson about his past successes, his memories of working with great drivers and his future projects, including the sustainable fuel which will power a new breed of F1 car from 2026.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Formula One has a rich history and an exciting future. |
| 0:14.4 | Pat Simmons is part of both. |
| 0:17.0 | When I go back and I look at, let's say a 1981 car that I worked on and was very proud of at the time. I looked at it now and I think, wow, |
| 0:27.0 | surely a dinosaur drove this. I have this thirst for knowledge. that's the sort of thing that keeps me going is |
| 0:36.8 | really these new technologies that we have to embrace. |
| 0:40.3 | Pat's past is in racing he won world titles with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso, |
| 0:46.2 | and he worked with Ayrton Senna at the start of the Brazilians F1 career. |
| 0:51.0 | He was very strong-minded, and when we look you know you can go faster if you were |
| 0:56.4 | a bit fitter because of his sort of strong almost big-headedness you know he wouldn't |
| 1:01.7 | accept things like that but that same quality when it came to anything else really drove him. |
| 1:07.0 | Today as F1's chief technical officer, Pat's overseeing the current rules on car design, and he's looking to the future, |
| 1:14.8 | to the sweeping changes coming in 2026, |
| 1:17.6 | when the sport will introduce a game-changing sustainable fuel |
| 1:21.2 | and an all- new generation of car. And welcome to F1 Beyond the Grid with me Tom Clarkson. |
| 1:35.0 | Pat Simmons has been in F1 for nearly five decades, |
| 1:40.0 | always racing with the very best. |
| 1:42.0 | In the 1980s, he was at the Tolman team when a |
| 1:45.7 | rookie called Ayrton Center sensationally scored a Monaco podium. In the 90s he was |
| 1:52.0 | Michael Schumacher's race engineer at Beneton, and he worked on the cars which gave Schumie his first couple of world titles. |
| 1:59.0 | Another decade, another champion. |
| 2:02.0 | This time, Fernando in 2005 and six. Pat was an |
| 2:06.9 | integral part of their successes and many people in his position would be happy to |
... |
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