People

George Ryton

Ryton's career in motor racing began in 1985 when he was hired by Carl Haas's Beatrice team to work as a designer in Neil Oatley and John Baldwin's drawing office. The team closed down at the end of 1986 and Ryton moved to Reynard where he drew the company's first Formula 3000 car. Before it ran - and won its first race - Ryton moved on to join John Barnard's Guildford Technical Office - Ferrari's British design center. He was there until the end of the 1988 season and was then offered the job of being technical director of EuroBrun, with the task of establishing a British design office - called Brun Technics - in Basingstoke.The team was short of money and in the end frustration led Ryton to quit and take up the offer as chief designer at Tyrrell under engineering director Harvey Postlethwaite for the 1991 season. His first design was the Honda-engined 020 which was sponsored by Braun. Although the team finished sixth in the Constructors' Championship in 1991, Braun pulled out, Tyrrell lost its Honda engines and Postlethwaite moved to Sauber. Ryton stayed on and produced the Tyrrell 020B - the 1990 car fitted with an Ilmor engine. It was good enough to take the team to sixth in the Constructors' in 1992 with Andrea de Cesaris and Olivier Grouillard driving. For 1993 money was still short and Ryton produced the 020C which was powered by a Yamaha engine. Before the season began, however, he was dropped and found a new job with John Barnard - who was back at Ferrari again. While Barnard worked in a new British design office called Ferrari Design and Development (FDD) at Shalford, Ryton moved to Italy to be head of the drawing office in Maranello.Three years later Ryton decided to branch out again and accepted the offer of the job as technical director of Forti Corse. It was short-lived adventure and at the end of 1996 he was appointed head of research and development at Ligier. The disappointing gearbox on the AP01 in 1998 saw him fall from favor and leave the team, now renamed Prost Grand Prix. A few weeks later he was appointed chief designer at Minardi and began work on the design of the 1999 car. Although underfunded the team did well with Marc Gene scoring a point at the European GP at the Nurburgring. Ryton has since dropped out of the F1 scene.