The lost Pat returns to the fold: Fry to re-join Renault
The engineer will return to his debut F1 team as Chassis Technical director
Benetton-McLaren-Ferrari-Manor-McLaren. It resembles the voyage of a cruise ship: the cruise ship of technical figures from team to team.
Pat Fry was on gardening leave from McLaren since the last July; now BBC Sport announces him as the new Chassis Technical Director at his former first F1 team, Renault.
It was the 1987 when Alessandro Nannini was competing in the rainbow painted Benetton sponsored car that saw Pat’s debut as engineer. From there on, all the top teams of new century followed in the career of the British technic.
From 1993 he spent much more time at Woking than every other team he later joined: the poor seasons suffered from the squad in the last four years forced the Briton to a reflection, that ultimately led to abandon the company.
A same story was experienced at Ferrari from 2011 to 2014: the sacking of Aldo Costa promoted him as the pinnacle figure for chassis, but years spent without a clear advantage over competitors made his mind for a change.
After two seasons at Manor as a consultant, he then re-joined McLaren before being called for substituting the office of Nick Chester.
In 2020 Pat will become one of the colleagues of Sporting Director Alan Permane in trying to step up the team reputation for Esteban Ocon and Daniel Ricciardo better results.
