People

Rod Nelson

An apprentice at British Leyland in his teens, Nelson was first involved in motor sport helping a friend look after his motorcycle in minor competitions. This led to an involvement in Formula Ford 1600, during which time he worked with a young up-and-coming driver called Johnny Dumfries, who went on to become a Lotus Formula 1 driver. While doing this, Nelson worked in the robotics department at British Leyland. After his apprenticeship was over, Nelson won a place at Cardiff University to study mechanical engineering and specialized in computer control of hydraulic systems. This made him very attractive to Formula 1 teams in the late 1980s when they were working to develop attractive suspensions. Nelson, however, did not immediately leap into Grand Prix racing but finished off his Bachelor of Science degree and then added a doctorate to his qualifications. In 1991 he joined the Footwork Arrows team and worked in Alan Jenkins's research and development team, specializing on active suspension development. After two years he was headhunted by Simtek Research and joined Nick Wirth, working on a development program for BMW's German Touring Car Championship challenge with driver Johnny Cecotto.

In 1993 he switched across to the new Simtek Grand Prix operation and began work on the F1 design. He assisted Wirth, engineering David Brabham in Simtek's difficult first year - marked by the death of second driver Roland Ratzenberger at Imola - and stayed with the team until it closed down because of financial problems in mid-1995. Wirth went to work at Benetton and it was not long before he recruited Nelson to work with him, both of them engineering Gerhard Berger and later Alexander Wurz. He remains with the team.