Former head of performance engineering at Williams and one of the few key people in Formula 1 from the north of England (more on that to follow!) Rob Smedley has joined his former Ferrari boss Ross Brawn at the Formula One Group where he will contribute to the coverage of Formula 1 with his technical expertise and experience in an attempt to better convey the more technical aspects of the sport to its fans.
On leaving Williams, Smedley stressed his desire to take a break from the sport in order to spend time with his family, but it would seem that Ross Brawn, Formula One Managing Director of Motorsports was able to convince him to remain within the sport at a more global level.
“In conversations with Ross, we were both of the opinion that there’s this really rich seam of technical content, of data, of the way that teams operate, that actually never gets told.” said Smedley in an interview with Autosport.
“And it’s part of the whole story that underpins Formula 1, which actually the paying public, the Formula 1 fan, never ever gets to see – or they get to see very little of it. So there’s an opportunity in front of us to put that together at some level.”
It could be argued that Rob Smedley‘s appointment is another example of Formula 1 focussing on improving the incidentals around the edge of the show, when it’s the show itself that needs serious improvement. Hopefully though, that will all be addressed when the new regulations come into effect in 20121.
Smedley was part of Williams’ 2018 Formula 1 campaign that so disappointed with the team’s worst ever finish in an F1 world championship, with its two drivers Lance Stroll and Sergey Sirotkin picking up a measly seven points between them, sealing tenth place and last in the constructors championship for the team.
He was one of a number of high profile Williams personnel to leave the team in 2019, including Ed Wood, and Dirk De Beer who assumed the majority of the responsibilty for the FW41 being such a complete and utter disaster.
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