Before he started, as he puts it, ‘playing with racing cars’, Jody Egginton trained as a schoolteacher. His love of motorsport led him to Formula 1, and he worked his way up from Tyrell during the early years of computer-aided design (CAD) to Technical Director at AlphaTauri today. Along the way he helped Force India achieve a stunning result in 2009, fought to keep the brand-new Caterham team afloat in the 2010s and worked with Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz at the very start of their F1 careers. He’s now driving AlphaTauri’s car development, pushing a team of engineers flat out to give Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda a car which can challenge for 5th in the F1 Constructors’ Championship. Jody tells Tom Clarkson about his approach to learning, communication, problem-solving and leadership, and shares advice for aspiring F1 engineers.

Related episodes from the Beyond The Grid archive

Pierre Gasly

Yuki Tsunoda 

Franz Tost, AlphaTauri Team Principal

James Key, McLaren’s Technical Director

John Barnard, legendary F1 technical genius

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