Frank Dernie's intention had been to get a job with Aston Martin since his ambition was to design racing cars.
16 Facts About Frank Dernie
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2.
Frank Dernie wanted to move a bit nearer the motor racing teams so looked for another noise and vibration job and got one at Garrard.
3.
Frank Dernie joined the Hesketh F1 team for 1976, at the age of 26 designed his first Formula One racing car, the 308E.
4.
Frank Dernie Williams hired him to join Patrick Head at Williams Grand Prix Engineering in time to design the successful FW07 and FW08 cars.
5.
Frank Dernie invented active suspension for use on the Williams car.
6.
Frank Dernie suggested to Patrick Head that they should try to implement their own wind tunnel at the Williams factory in Didcot, Oxfordshire.
7.
Frank Dernie, with help from Ross Brawn, wired up the electronic systems for the tunnel, and thus Williams became the first F1 team with their own dedicated wind tunnel facility to improve aerodynamic development.
8.
Frank Dernie was the first ever Formula One engineer to use computers to aid design, although such software did not exist, initially he had to write his own machine code in order to do so.
9.
Frank Dernie is credited with being the first Formula One engineer to implement a data logger on A Formula One car.
10.
For 1989, Frank Dernie joined Lotus, replacing Gerard Ducarouge as Technical Director.
11.
At the start of 1992 Frank Dernie was at the Ligier team during the tests where Alain Prost was evaluating the car, noting that he was around 1.5 to 2 seconds quicker than regular driver Boutsen could lap at.
12.
Frank Dernie went to Ligier for the 1995 season to become technical director.
13.
Frank Dernie moved to Arrows for 1996 but only stayed for a year.
14.
Frank Dernie left Formula One for the first time to join Lola in order to help the team re-establish itself in Champ Cars after MasterCard Lola's disastrous F1 foray in 1997.
15.
In 2002, Frank Dernie left Lola to return to Williams as a consultant engineer in 2003.
16.
Frank Dernie left in early 2007 and in August the same year joined the Toyota F1 team as a consultant in 'aerodynamic and chassis related matters.