21 Facts About Pat Fry

Pat Fry was born on 17 March 1964 and is a British motorsports engineer.

Pat Fry moved onto Thorn's missile programmes, before deciding to leave the company in 1987 to pursue a career in motorsport.

Pat Fry had an interest in building suspension systems for motorbikes in his spare time, and joined the Benetton Formula's research and development department in Witney, Oxfordshire, who at the time were working on active suspension systems.

Pat Fry moved to the test team and then to the team's Godalming research and development department.

Pat Fry returned to the test team in 1991, before being made Martin Brundle's race engineer in 1992.

In 1993, former Benetton colleague Giorgio Ascanelli persuaded Pat Fry to join him at McLaren.

Pat Fry renewed his contract with McLaren in 1997 to become David Coulthard's race engineer, a role he held for four years.

Pat Fry moved to a tactical coordinating role in 2001, overseeing both the team's race cars.

On 22 June 2010, it was announced that Pat Fry was to join the Ferrari team as assistant technical director from 1 July.

On 4 January 2011, Ferrari announced that Pat Fry had replaced Chris Dyer as head of race track engineering while retaining his assistant technical director position under Aldo Costa.

On 24 May 2011, Costa was moved to an undefined position within the team and Pat Fry was given the job as director of chassis, with the position of technical director being removed outright.

On 23 July 2013, Ferrari announced that Lotus technical director James Allison would take over as chassis technical director as of 1 September; Pat Fry remained with Ferrari as director of engineering and continue to report directly to Domenicali alongside Allison and chief designer Nikolas Tombazis.

Ferrari said Pat Fry would leave the team in a restructuring announced 16 December 2014.

In January 2016, Pat Fry joined Manor Racing as engineering consultant.

On 4 September 2018, McLaren announced Pat Fry would join the team as engineering director in a temporary capacity while awaiting the arrival of full-time technical director James Key from gardening leave at Toro Rosso.

Pat Fry led the team in the process of developing the 2019 car, the McLaren MCL34.

In July 2019, it was reported Pat Fry had gone on gardening leave at the culmination of his temporary assignment.

On 2 November 2019, the Renault F1 Team announced that Pat Fry would join the team for the 2020 season.

Pat Fry oversaw all technical activities, set performance targets, and identified future technologies for the car.

At the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix, it was announced that Pat Fry would be leaving Alpine to join Williams as their chief technical officer, starting in 2024.

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