People

Allen McDonald

After completing a masters degree in mechanical engineering and naval architecture at University College, London - where Colin Chapman studied - McDonald joined spent three years working with the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, helping to design equipment for the Royal Navy and then joined the Brabham team in Chessington in 1985, his job being to design and build a one-third scale windtunnel for the team to use. When that was completed he moved into the drawing office and helped Sergio Rinland design the Brabham BT56 which was used in 1987. In 1988 the team withdrew from the World Championship and Rinland and his team worked on the design of a prototype Procar (the Brabham BT57) for Alfa Romeo. The team then returned to F1 under new ownership and McDonald was involved with the design of the BT58. That year he also race engineered Stefano Modena.At the end of 1989 Brabham ran into financial trouble and McDonald took up the offer of a job with the Arrows team, race engineering Alex Caffi and then Michele Alboreto, Aguri Suzuki, Derek Warwick and ultimately Christian Fittipaldi. But by 1994 the team was struggling for money and McDonald was offered a job at Paul Stewart Racing, on the other side of Milton Keynes. While race engineering Allan McNish in Formula 3000 he produced a technical proposal, charting what the team needed to do to get into Formula 1. In 1996 he went back to Arrows and race engineered Jos Verstappen. That year he received an offer from PacWest to become the CART team's technical director and went to the United States, working with Mark Blundell and Mauricio Gugelmin. Since the closure of PacWest McDonald has remained in America.