16th March 2004 - First, The Meaning of Life

[DLG] I was compiling more information for the new cars section of my website, when I stumbled across your name as the designer of the First 189-Judd. From your CV, I see that you were Technical Director, and helped set up the team with Lamberto Leoni, and redesigned a March 88B. When you say redesign, how much did you redesign? 
 
...a long story... when Gordon Coppuck and Adrian Newey started to design the 881 March (Leyton House...), I did the suspension geometry with Gordon on the trusty 9825 Hewlett-Packard as no-one else had a 3D computer  programme for geometry... all under the old pals act as had given Adrian his first job at Fitti straight out of Uni, and recommended he go to America with March when things were getting rocky at Fitti's... meanwhile knew Gordon very well from McLaren days .. then left computer at Leyton House with White noise (later of Symtek fame), who promptly copied my software....anyway at that time was in Italy running Leoni's team.... Leyton House proposed to borrow me for the F1 project and supply a works engineer to run First cars in F3000, and to make First a semi-works F3000 team... Leoni did not accept because he had plans to build his own F1....we then received the proto 88B (I picked it up on the 24th dec..) and we were running at Misano by the 26th December.... ran for the whole of jan and feb , but only at Misano... (Leoni lived in Ravenna, beside the track so convenient for him...) , unfortunately Misano very smooth track, and we kept improving the car , to the point that pre-first GP Minardi, Osella and Zakspeed tested when we were running, and couldn't beat our times...they  were seriously annoyed.
 
Feeling quite chuffed with ourselves then went on to Jerez, and found car to be totally undriveable over bumps, on fast corner behind pits (where Donnelly had his huge shunt), taken flat in 5th our drivers were backing off , and sometimes dropping a gear... as car pithed went from massive turn-in oversteer to arms-crossed understeer on way out.....Reynard on pole (their first F3000 race) and we headed all Marches, but still 2 seconds behind pole.
 
I then changed the diffuser (at the track with a hacksaw... cut-and shut...), afterwards was given the model and ran the wind tunnel programme at Southampton... first discovery was that models flat bottom was made out of 18swg ally, and was bowing with aero suction, worse still, was not keeping its shape, so when they had pitched the model it was a very stable center of pressure, shifting less than 0.6%... when replaced floor with thicker gauge plate found out CP change was nearer 10% massively unstable.... so after changing aero, geometry and going into major reinforcing of chassis (including changing bottom engine mounts and reinforcing tub) we managed to get car quite competitive, and actually in contention for the championship.. that is , until Pier Luigi was dragged back to F1 to replace Campos at Minardi... he had been a test driver and I used to give them a hand in tests... at that point championship challenge fizzled out as Leoni preferred to invest in the ongoing F1 project.... which had been going on in parallel with F3000 season.... when trouble had struck on F3000, the F1 project which I had laid out in general lines around Martini and Apicella... it was a very small car...
 
As too busy sorting out F3000 the project was passed on to Giovanni Marellis design Studio (they proliferated in Italy at the time , all the ex Ferrari blokes had set one up)... Marelli, to put in delicately , was a incompetent fool (see previous Zakspeed, also by him) fiddled around with design, but worse of all, had made a all inclusive deal , which involved building the car and components for a ludicrous price... in short a disaster... gearbox casing was a ex-Alfa casting, so badly executed that suspension mounts had casting pull-back (when the material in bosses shrink when magnesium contracts under cooling) leaving a 1/4inch wall where the rear lower pickups were, and when doing the monocoque at a subcontractor the settings for the autoclave were wrong and tub overcooked, burning all the resin in pre-preg... whole thing was loose sheets of carbon vaguely linked together.... on seeing details such as 3/8 of an inch thick solid titanium steering column (after you had full lock on you could still turn steering wheel nearly a full turn as steering column wound-up...) and the tub and gearbox casting had said to Leoni that car was NFG, and fundamentally unsafe, furthermore as I had not been involved in the detail design did not want to be associated with car in any form...as finance for team was not forthcoming I thought everything had gone quietly to sleep.
 
At the same time had been invited to go to Ligier, and was horrified to have car turn up at Bologna, now with Tarquini driving ( he went on crash diet to be able to get into car , as considerably taller and burlier than Martini)... and having my name bandied around as designer, even to the point of having photos of car in Autosprint with me beside it , when inspecting car that had arrived... I promptly flew down to Milan from Ligier, and having been given a very high powered lawyer (Guy's own in Italy) had Leoni sign an affidavit pledging not to mention my name in any shape or form, and to issue press retractions to Autosprint and Rombo, so as to clearly dissociate me from project, having the Milan court issue an injunction,u nder threat of taking him to court for misrepresentation, libel, mendacity, and probably barratry and other fun legal terms...    last year had to put F1 rejects right as they also had quoted me in their write up... probably have email somewhere and will post to you for your amusement... if you read their cover of the car you will find my email almost verbatim...
 
 
[DG] From memory, the car only appeared on the Bologna Autosprint, before metamorphisising into the Life. What really happened? I looked up First and Life in Nye's History of the GP car, but the entries for Life and First are rather cursory, and your name isn't mentioned once. This omission did more to pique my interest more than anything else!
 
 .....I see court injunctions still working the following century... lawyers do have their uses....even though I still think they are blood-sucking leeches.... anyway time to crash as very late, tomorrow major battle on Dakar front, and wed back home for a weeks rest before start of season... despite massive cock-ups on car build , we were 1st,2nd ,3rd,4th,and 6th at Suzuka test with the 4 race cars and the test car, another cockup but will explain later..... looking good for championship
 
today's tit-bit, major unrest at BAR on race-crew, they worked until 3am after race to change engines and race prepare cars to send to Malaysia... then major panic from Honda.. engines must come out and be changed for re-specced engines thursday night before first practice... race crew are now in UK and will arrive thursday afternoon suffering from major jet lag... mmmm, not looking good... at McLaren serious shit flying about, no-one will comment on anything on company phone , just keep getting hushed 'phone me at home messages'  seems quite serious.. Renault cock-a-hoop, say they will be on podium often.... 'no-comment' on traction control though             regards  RD