People

Greg Wheeler

Many of the Formula 1 engineers of today are specialists, who are experts at particular areas of a car. The growth of the teams in recent years has meant that there are fewer and fewer engineers with an overall knowledge of the car. Williams F1 has tried to avoid this and, as a result, will probably produce many of the technical directors of the future. The team usually hires engineers with a solid grounding in the engineering trade but occasionally signs up a motor sport specialist if they have plenty of experience. One such engineer is South African Greg Wheeler.

Born in South Africa, but now a holder of dual South African-Australian nationality, Wheeler studied at Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University - a school which also produced Ferrari chief designer Rory Byrne. After graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering Greg spent two years doing his national service in the South African Navy before heading off to Australia where he embarked on a career in motor racing, enrolling on one of the Training And Further Education (TAFE) schemes linked to motor racing. At the time TAFE was running a Formula Holden team, although it has for many years been involved in other areas of the sport, including offering a fast free rebuild service at the Bathurst 1000 touring car race.

After learning the ropes in Formula Holden, Greg found a job with Mitsubishi Motors in Australia, working as a development engineer, before transferring in 1993 to the Mitsubishi World Rally Championship team in England. He then worked with the West Surrey Racing Ford touring car team before joining Williams to work with the Renault British Touring Car Championship operation. He engineered Alain Menu to the championship in 1998. He was also briefly involved with the BMW Le Mans project before becoming Alex Zanardi's race engineer at the start of the 1999 season. He left Williams at the end of that year but reappeared in F1 witrh Arrows in 2001. He later moved on to Minardi.