Ian Wright | |
Nationality: | British |
Ian Wright is a British engineer who has held positions in several Formula One teams.
Wright has worked for 30 years at the top level of motorsport complemented by 5 years in the aerospace industry.
In 1990, Wright became a part of McLaren team, where he played a pivotal role in vehicle performance simulation, toolset development for analysis, and competitor comparison. His contributions were instrumental in securing championships for McLaren in 1990 and 1991. Wright led the development of new analytical techniques that identified key vehicle performance development problems at McLaren in 1996 and 1997 and helped change the way vehicle performance was developed with the outcome of helping McLaren win the world championship in 1998.[1]
Wright began working in Formula One in the late 1990s as an engineer for British American Racing, he remained with the team after it was acquired by Honda and renamed Honda Racing F1 Team in 2006 and then Brawn GP in 2009.
Wright became head of engineering software when Mercedes-Benz took control of the team. He left the Mercedes team in the summer of 2014 to take up a role outside of Formula 1 in the United States.
In early July 2017, it was announced that Sauber had hired Wright, who had already started working at the team as its new head of performance, as a new reinforcement for the remainder of the 2017 Formula 1 season.[2] He remained with the team after it rebranded to Alfa Romeo Racing in 2019 as head of vehicle science.[3]