Eghbal Hamidy

Eghbal Hamidy (born 1 August 1960)^[1] is an Iranian aerodynamic engineer. He was technical director and aerodynamics expert for several Formula 1 (F1) teams in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Career[]

Hamidy is one of the few Muslim engineers working in F1. He graduated from Imperial College in London, majoring in aeronautical engineering (S1 and S2) and vehicle dynamics for his doctoral program in the late 1980s.

He then started his career in the Williams team in 1989, as an assistant to Enrique Scalabroni and Adrian Newey. He stayed in the team until the end of 1995. His best achievement was when he led Nigel Mansell (1992) and Alain Prost (1993) to become world champions. In 1996 he left for the Stewart GP team.

At Stewart GP, Hamidy served as chief designer. At that time, he was known as an expert in designing great cars on wet tracks, because every time there was a rainy race condition, Stewart GP's appearance was always stunning.

Even when he left for Arrows in 1999, Hamidy's influence was felt on Stewart. Rubens Barrichello recorded pole in France and Johnny Herbert recorded victory at the Nürburgring.

In the team led by Tom Walkinshaw, Hamidy earned the reputation as an expert in designing fast cars on the low-downforce style circuit. This is evidenced by the speed of Jos Verstappen in the 2000 Austrian Grand Prix, the 2000 Italian Grand Prix, and finally the 2001 Austrian Grand Prix.

He moved to Jordan in early 2001, unfortunately his performance was subpar, which led to his dismissal in early 2002 and replacement by Gary Anderson.^[2][3]

References[]

External links[]

• Eghbal Hamidy - Jordan information site