Pat Fry

Pat Fry
Born	(1964-03-17) 17 March 1964 Shepperton, Surrey, UK
Nationality	British
Title	Technical director for the chassis division, Ferrari.

Pat Fry (born 17 March 1964) is an English motor racing engineer, presently the "technical director for the chassis division" of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One team (having been assistant technical director under Aldo Costa before the position was removed due to management restructuring at the team).

Early career

Fry was born in Shepperton, Surrey, England. After attempting several engineering courses, he became an apprentice at Thorn EMI in 1981. While at Thorn EMI, he completed a day-release course in electronics at the City of London Polytechnic. He moved onto Thorn's missile programmes, before deciding to leave the company in 1987 to pursue a career in motorsport.

Motorsports career

Benetton: 1987-1993

Fry had an interest in building suspension systems for motorbikes in his spare time, and joined the Benetton Formula One team's research and development department in Witney, Oxfordshire, who at the time were working on active suspension systems. He moved to the test team, and then to the teams Godalming research and development department. He returned to the test team in 1991, before being made Martin Brundle's race engineer in 1992.

McLaren: 1993-2010

In 1993, former Benetton colleague Giorgio Ascanelli persuaded Fry to join him at McLaren. His initial position was to work on active suspension systems, and run the McLaren test team, but active suspension systems were banned by the sports governing body before the start of the 1994 season and so Fry moved to an engineering position in the race team. After a season as Mika Häkkinen's race engineer in 1995, he returned to the McLaren test team in 1996 despite rumours linking him with a move to Ferrari. He renewed his contract with McLaren in 1997 to become David Coulthard's race engineer, a role he held for four years. He moved to a tactical coordinating role in 2001, overseeing both the team's race cars. In 2002 he was promoted to the role of Chief Engineer of Race Development, and was responsible for the MP4-20, MP4-22 and MP4-24 chassis.

Ferrari: 2010-present

After his departure from McLaren was announced on 14 May 2010, on 22 June, it was announced that Fry was to join the Ferrari team as assistant technical director from 1 July. On 4 January 2011 Ferrari announced that Fry replaced Chris Dyer as head of race track engineering, while retaining his assistant technical director position under Aldo Costa. The change was made following a tactical error in the last race of the 2010 season which cost Fernando Alonso a chance at the title. On 24 May 2011, Aldo Costa was moved to an undefined position within the team and so Fry, after management restructuring, was given the job as "director of chassis" with the position of "technical director" being removed outright. "Chassis director" is one of 3 position (the other two being: "production director" - currently filled by Corrado Lanzone; and "electronics director" - currently filled by Luca Marmorini). All 3 engineering positions operate on an equal footing within the team and all report directly to team boss Domenicali who has now taken over responsibility regarding on circuit strategy and other functions previously assigned to "technical director".

Personal life

On 20 April 2002, Fry married Kate Habershon, a food editor and stylist who had worked in motorsport catering.