Patrick Head

Sir Patrick Michael Head (born 5 June 1946) is a British motorsport executive who is the co-founder and former Engineering Director of the Williams Formula One team. For 27 years starting from the season, Head was technical director at Williams Grand Prix Engineering, and responsible for many innovations within Formula One. Head oversaw the design and construction of Williams cars until May 2004 when his role was handed over to Sam Michael.

Early career

Patrick Head was born into motor sport, his father Michael racing Jaguar sportscars in the 1950s, and was privately educated at Wellington College. After leaving school, Head joined the Royal Navy but soon realised that a career in the military was not how he wanted to spend his life and so left to attend university, first in Birmingham and later, after failing his first year exams, at UCL.

Head graduated in 1970 with a Mechanical Engineering degree, and immediately joined the chassis manufacturer Lola in Huntingdon.

1990s In 1990, Williams hired Adrian Newey, recently sacked as technical director of Leyton House Racing. The two engineers rapidly formed the outstanding design partnership of the 1990s with Head/Newey cars achieving a level of dominance never seen before, and not repeated until the Ferrari/Schumacher era a decade later. In a seven-year period between 1991 and 1997, Williams had fifty-nine race wins, won five constructors' titles, and four different drivers won world championships. Newey also had ambitions to succeed to technical director; this was blocked as Head was a founder and shareholder of the team. With Williams securing both the drivers' and constructors' titles in 1996, McLaren managed to lure Newey away, although he was forced to take gardening leave for the 1997 season.

2000s Since the departure of Newey, Williams often appeared a spent force, able to win occasionally, but unable to mount a consistent challenge. During the dominant Ferrari/Schumacher period from 2000–2004, Williams managed to finish runner-up in the constructors' championship in 2002 and 2003, and 2003 was the closest that one of their drivers, Juan Pablo Montoya, got to the world title.

In 2004, Head moved to the position of Director of Engineering, as Sam Michael became Technical Director. After Head's move, Williams's decline continued and following Montoya's win at the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix, they entered a lengthy period without a Grand Prix victory ended by Pastor Maldonado winning the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix.

2010s In 2012, Head resigned from his position in the Williams team. He continued his involvement in Williams Hybrid Power Limited until it was sold to GKN in April 2014. In 2015, he received a knighthood for his services to motorsport. In March 2019, Head returned to Williams Racing for the first time in eight years in a consultancy role.

Ayrton Senna accident

In April 2007, the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport reported that a court in Bologna had concluded that a technical failure was responsible for Ayrton Senna's fatal accident at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. Under Italian law, the responsibility for such an accident has to be proved but no action was taken against Head or Williams' Chief Designer Adrian Newey, neither of whom attended the court hearing. The court's findings were made public 13 years after the accident and the case was closed.

On 13 April 2007, the Italian Court of Appeal stated the following in the verdict numbered 15050: "It has been determined that the accident was caused by a steering column failure. This failure was caused by badly designed and badly executed modifications. The responsibility of this falls on Patrick Head, culpable of omitted control." Even being found responsible for Senna's accident, Head was not arrested because in Italy the statute of limitation for manslaughter is 7 years and 6 months, and the final verdict was pronounced 13 years after the accident.

Honours In 2002, Head was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng). In the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours, Head was appointed a Knight Bachelor "for services to Motorsport".