Frank Dernie

Frank Dernie is a veteran British engineer who currently works for the Toyota Formula One team.

Career

Dernie was brought up in Lancashire and educated at Kirkham Grammar School before he studied engineering at the Imperial College London university. He joined the Hesketh F1 team for F1|1976 before becoming Patrick Head's aerodynamic assistant at Williams in time to help design the successful FW08 chassis. He also designed the team's active suspension and contributed to the establishment of a wind tunnel facility.

For F1|1989, Dernie joined Lotus, replacing Gérard Ducarouge as Chief Designer. However, the team was in decline and he left to join Benetton for F1|1991, but had to move in favour of Tim Wright and so went to Ligier for the F1|1995 season to become technical director. [cite news| title =Engineering changes at Benetton| publisher =grandprix.com| url =http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns00012.html| date =1995-02-06| accessdate =2007-03-10]

He moved to Arrows for F1|1996 but only stayed for a year due to the arrival of John Barnard. He joined Lola in order to help the team re-establish itself after MasterCard Lola's disastrous F1 foray in F1|1997.

In F1|2002, Dernie left Lola to return to Williams as a consultant engineer in F1|2003. He left in early F1|2007 and in August the same year joined the Toyota F1 team as a consultant in 'aerodynamic and chassis related matters' [cite news| title =Dernie joins Toyota| publisher =grandprix.com| url =http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns19563.html| date =2007-08-29| accessdate =2007-08-30] .

References

*Grandprix.com [http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/cref-derfra.html biography] , retrieved December 6 2006.