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Former F1 driver Mark Surer believes Ferrari’s impressive performances in 2022 are down to legendary designer Rory Byrne’s work on the new regulations. Surer claims that the Scuderia’s 2022 challenger, the F1-75, shares a lot of characteristics with the team’s championship-winning cars from the early 2000s, which were also designed by Byrne.
Speaking to F1-insider following the Australian GP last weekend, Surer said:
“This year’s Ferrari has similar characteristics to those of the Schumacher-Ferraris from the successful era: they were fast everywhere and, in all conditions, had great traction and always got the best out of the tires. That’s clearly Byrne’s signature.”
Ferrari brought Byrne out of retirement in early 2020 to work exclusively on the 2022 regulations. Following their impressive run during pre-season testing in February, Byrne’s contract was extended by a further three years. Surer believes this indicates that the Scuderia were impressed with the work Byrne had done on their 2022 car.
Following the loss of former technical director James Allison to Mercedes at the end of 2016, Ferrari have struggled to bring out a competitive chassis to rival the German team, despite being on par and times ahead with their power unit.
Surer believes Byrne is the right person to lead the Scuderia’s chassis design in the new era, especially considering his vast experience working with ground-effect cars in the early 1980s. He added, saying:
“Byrne is just as much a genius as [Adrian] Newey. In the 1980s, like today, we had major problems with so-called bouncing, the extreme jumping of cars on the straight. Rory Byrne was already working on the subject back then. Byrne is guaranteed that the cars will remain at a top level throughout the season.”
Rory Byrne played a crucial role in Ferrari’s domination of F1 in the early 2000s
Rory Byrne has worked in motorsports for over five decades, with three of those in F1 alone. The South-African-born designer joined Benetton as chief designer in 1986, and within five seasons had ensured that their cars were good enough to challenge the likes of Ferrari, McLaren, and Williams.
Byrne’s first real test came in 1994 when the Benetton B194 chassis seemed like a superior car compared to the Williams FW16.
A ban on electronic aids for that season neutered the advantage that Williams had until then, allowing Benetton to challenge for the title with a young upstart from Germany – Michael Schumacher. The Benetton-Schumacher duo went on to win the title that year and the next.
When Schumacher moved to Ferrari, he took Byrne and Ross Brawn with him. While Byrne was responsible for the technical aspects, Brawn oversaw the racing operations on the track.
Within five seasons, the trio had turned the fortunes of the ailing Scuderia around, producing fast cars year after year to blitz through the competition. The Scuderia promptly went on to dominate F1 for five more seasons, making Schumacher statistically one of the greatest drivers ever to have raced in the sport.
The F2004 is considered one of the greatest cars to have ever been developed. It was the last championship-winning car designed by Byrne and was such a dominant force that the Scuderia won all but three races in an 18-race calendar.
