1. Nicholas John Peter Wirth was born on 26 March 1966 and is an automotive engineer and the founder and owner of Wirth Research.
12 Facts About Nick Wirth
1. 2.
Nick Wirth started his Formula One career as an aerodynamicist for March Engineering, working on the 1988 and 1989 Leyton House March cars.
3.
From October 1993 to June 1995, Nick Wirth was founder, owner, and technical director of Simtek Grand Prix, a Formula One racing team that first appeared in the 1994 Formula One season.
4.
From 1996 until 1999 Nick Wirth was chief designer and later a board member of the Benetton Formula One team.
5.
In 1999 Nick Wirth founded RoboScience, and created the RS-01 RoboDog in 2001.
6.
In 2006 Nick Wirth Research began working for the FIA in the Casumaro windtunnel in Italy on the split rear wing design that the FIA proposed for the 2008 F1 season.
7.
In 2007 Nick Wirth Research became involved with the Acura LMP programme in the American Le Mans Series and was involved with designing the LMP1 class car for 2009 season.
8.
Nick Wirth used computational fluid dynamics extensively to design the LMP1 class car.
9.
In 2009 Nick Wirth Design teamed up with John Booth of Manor Motorsport to create a car for the 2010 Formula One season.
10.
The car that Nick Wirth designed for use in the 2010 season, the Virgin VR-01, is the first Formula One racing car designed entirely with computational fluid dynamics with no use of traditional wind tunnels during the design or build process.
11.
Nick Wirth designed Virgin's second F1 car, the MVR-02, but its performance proved to be disappointing as it failed to close the gap to the leaders relative to the VR-01.
12.
In June 2011, Virgin announced that it had parted company with Nick Wirth and abandoned its policy of only using CFD.