Swiss engineer Peter Wyss de Araujo has sampled just about each motorsport self-discipline from hillclimbing to Method 1, taking in a profitable decade of touring automobiles and a spell in Method E alongside the way in which. However he’s by no means stopped studying, and that mantra stays at present in his present place race engineering an ORECA-Gibson 07 within the European Le Mans sequence for the Group Virage outfit arrange by a former colleague at Campos Racing, the place Wyss de Araujo loved his longest spell at a single workforce and helped quite a few drivers rise by way of the ranks.
His time in F1 was filled with onerous knocks, spent with an nearly literal A to Z of low-budget groups – having jumped out of the hearth at Zakspeed solely to land within the flames at AGS by way of a quick stint at Leyton Home. Alongside the way in which he counted spells at Coloni, a workforce to which he would return 15 years later, and the short-lived Lamborghini outfit the place he skilled the brilliance and chaos of Mauro Forghieri. All his classes, Wyss de Araujo says, “I needed to discover out myself, I didn’t have somebody giving me recommendation”.
A lot of his profession has concerned switching between race engineer, efficiency engineer and technical director roles – the latter a place he confesses “I by no means wished to do, that’s simply when there was no person else, I needed to do it” on the CiBiEmme Engineering BMW workforce. However Wyss de Araujo views his “zig-zag” trajectory philosophically.
“Typically it’s a scenario the place there’s one job obtainable and never the opposite one, so that you go in and do what is required for the workforce,” he displays. “Then you definitely work by way of it and contribute to the workforce effort within the function which for the time being on account of circumstances you’re positioned in.”
His motorsport journey began out whereas finding out, serving to varied Swiss drivers. Wyss de Araujo remembers cleansing the bodywork, tyres and rims of Jo Vonlanthen’s Williams FW03 on the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix, and in 1978 engineered Patrick Studer’s Chevron to the Swiss Method 3 championship – by which hillclimbs featured predominantly.
He additionally joined Studer on the occasional European Method 2 race, and discovered rapidly to do all method of jobs himself. Within the early days, working in small groups, he factors out “you didn’t have all this sort of luxurious” of making certain a division of labour. “The particular person engineering the automobile does all the things – efficiency engineer, race engineer, psychologist, the entire thing,” he explains.
Wyss de Araujo (with clipboard) spent a number of years toiling with small F1 groups such because the Modena Lamborghini outfit
Photograph by: Ercole Colombo
Wyss de Araujo spent two years finding out engineering earlier than deciding “I didn’t need to be taught to design bridges or trains”. He switched to maths, subsequently finishing a PhD on the College of Bern centered on forecasting the power consumption of a rustic, and says it doesn’t matter what your academic grounding as a result of “you’ll be taught doing the job within the first years”.
“Within the very starting I wished to have the ability to construct my very own lap time simulator, which I did by finding out, and that’s in all probability how it began,” he remembers. “Other than that, I like science and I like numbers and precision. If you’re born in Switzerland, you’re born with precision. Arithmetic principally teaches you to be a logical thinker and that’s what you employ so much in motorsport.”
After graduating, in 1985 he started a productive relationship with Gabriele Tarquini that later would soak up three completely different F1 groups. Operating the inexperienced Italian at Alberto Colombo’s SanRemo Racing squad within the inaugural season of Method 3000, the partnership yielded a podium on the third try in Portugal. Wyss de Araujo and Tarquini switched to Coloni for 1986, however there was just one podium in Austria because the workforce chopped and altered components in a bid to maintain its year-old March aggressive.
“[Coloni] have been going there with eight individuals and on the grid you have got Ligier across the automobile with 35 individuals. To battle groups like that with a large funds was good”
Peter Wyss de Araujo
Undeterred, Enzo Coloni spied a chance in F1 as its turbo period got here to an finish. However his ambition wasn’t matched by assets. The Ford-powered FC187 that was entered at two grands prix for Nicola Larini was the results of minimal manpower.
“We have been two engineers designing a Method 1 automobile,” Wyss de Araujo says. “That was F1 because it was previously. I used to be the race engineer of that automobile as a result of it was the proprietor, me, and an engineer that didn’t journey doing the updates. Once more, you’d do all the things.”
The monocoque wanted to be modified for 1988 to accommodate Tarquini, however the workforce’s work was vindicated by ending a twice lapped eighth in Montreal after Tarquini had come by way of pre-qualifying to hitch Stefan Johansson’s Ligier on the again row. Factors have been solely awarded all the way down to sixth, however it was a rewarding outcome all the identical.
“From having constructed the automobile and designed the automobile between two individuals – and never even a brand new automobile, solely a modified automobile from the season earlier than – that was an achievement,” Wyss de Araujo chuckles. “We have been going there with eight individuals and on the grid you have got Ligier across the automobile with 35 individuals. To battle groups like that with a large funds was good.”
Tarquini’s eighth place end within the 1988 Canadian Grand Prix for Coloni is considered one of Wyss de Araujo’s favorite F1 reminiscences
Photograph by: Motorsport Photographs
Tarquini did not qualify on eight events that 12 months, however that paled by comparability with the tally racked up by Bernd Schneider at Zakspeed in a attempting 1989. That 12 months, usually 13 automobiles vied for a spot within the prime 4 that might progress to qualifying correct – when one other 4 would miss out.
After 13 straight failures to qualify, Schneider made the minimize at Suzuka after the workforce had examined a brand new Yamaha engine at a darkish Sugo with Aguri Suzuki. Wyss de Araujo vividly remembers the second Schneider surged up the leaderboard to 3rd in pre-qualifying – earlier than he took twenty first on the grid forward of a Benetton and each Arrows – after a spin on his first set of tyres as a spotlight “that pays you for the entire 12 months”.
“These are feelings you can not describe,” he says. “It’s price one 12 months of struggling going residence on a regular basis, just for that one time. Within the previous days the place you probably did this job for ardour primarily, these are moments that you just always remember. How I felt there, I can shut my eyes and put myself again into that second.”
Wyss de Araujo joined Leyton Home in 1990 however it was a troublesome begin to the 12 months with drivers Ivan Capelli and Mauricio Gugelmin every now and then struggling to qualify, whereas the workforce’s impending monetary doom had resulted within the appointment of a finance director intent on trimming funds. The engineer reckons he was “not mature sufficient to deal with the scenario accurately” and fell out with Adrian Newey earlier than leaving for AGS to reunite with Tarquini from the French GP.
The scenario at AGS was no much less dire, nevertheless, as proprietor Cyril de Rouvre stopped investing. Wyss de Araujo remembers that workers went unpaid whereas a brand new proprietor was sought and simply six workforce members travelled to Phoenix for the 1991 season opener to run its two JH25Bs for Tarquini and Johansson.
However whereas the Swede did not qualify, Tarquini completed a exceptional eighth, capping a weekend when the skeleton crew had lacked the funds to pay a rental automobile deposit and relied on quick meals takeaways purchased by their loyal driver for sustenance, till the FIA decreed that different groups ought to allow them entry to their hospitalities. Wyss de Araujo picks it as his standout F1 reminiscence as a result of “it was a lot towards all the traditional legal guidelines”.
However it wasn’t a sustainable scenario and so he joined Lamborghini, the place Forghieri ran the present. The legendary former Ferrari designer, who died in 2022, commanded respect on account of his pure intelligence, however Wyss de Araujo discovered him “chaotic” to work with.
“He had a really quick thinking-brain, however he was additionally very Latin,” he says. “We had 11 engines, I believe in Lamborghini, and no person knew the specs of those engines. No person! You’d come to a circuit and you wouldn’t even know what you had on the automobile.
Money-strapped AGS workforce gave Wyss de Araujo (left, with Tarquini in automobile) loads of complications
Photograph by: Motorsport Photographs
“That Lamborghini automobile was an absolute shitbox. We had no downforce, we had flexing all over the place, and an engine that had a pleasant sound and used a variety of gasoline.”
After yet one more low-budget season of F1 with Fondmetal, as soon as once more with Tarquini, he joined Umberto Grano’s CiBiEmme outfit for the 1993 Italian tremendous touring championship. The advice had come from Tarquini, who had additionally pushed for CiBiEmme in 1992.
“He was accountable that I acquired into the BMWs,” states Wyss de Araujo. “So I went to do Tremendous Touring automobiles and forgot about Method 1.” It marked the beginning of a decade-long stint with CiBiEmme that might yield two Italian championships and later take within the European Tremendous Touring Automobile Cup, its tremendous manufacturing class and within the S2000-based European Touring Automobile Championship.
“We had official engines from Germany however we constructed all the time the chassis ourselves. We had typically six dampers within the automobile, heave dampers, pushrods. These have been critical racing automobiles”
Peter Wyss de Araujo
In 1993 he was assigned none apart from touring automobile legend Roberto Ravaglia, and the partnership yielded the title in Wyss de Araujo’s first season in tin-tops. He describes Ravaglia as “just like the Alain Prost of touring automobiles” and discovered an incredible quantity from the motive force who had beforehand gained European championships in 1986 and 1988, the World Touring Automobile Championship in 1987, the DTM in 1989 and back-to-back Italian titles in 1990-91.
Wyss de Araujo repeatedly sat alongside Ravaglia in assessments and even skilled an accident when a tyre blew at Monza’s second Lesmo – “there’s a lot stones and issues coming into the cockpit [when you go in the gravel] that you just perceive why individuals ought to use full-face helmets!” It was from Ravaglia that he found the worth in a softer-than-usual set-up.
“I wished to make the automobiles all the time too stiff, and he taught me to make comfortable automobiles,” says Wyss de Araujo. “While you put a child right into a comfortable automobile, he can’t use it anyplace. You must make them stiff automobiles, so they’re a bit extra predictable and you’ll be extra erratic. If the automobile is comfortable, it’s important to be exact in your inputs.”
Working in touring automobiles was an satisfying problem for Wyss de Araujo, who initially discovered “they have been massively behind” F1 ranges of preparation with out bespoke seats and knowledge acquisition. Nevertheless, he discovered it “very satisfying” that the workforce may construct and develop its personal chassis: “We had official engines from Germany however we constructed all the time the chassis ourselves. We had typically six dampers within the automobile, heave dampers, pushrods. These have been critical racing automobiles, like DTM automobiles however solely two litres.”
A number of satisfying years have been spent in touring automobiles on the CiBiEmme workforce. Pictured is Morbidelli on his method to victory within the European Tremendous Touring Cup on the Hungaroring in 2000
Photograph by: Sutton Photographs
In 1994, the Audi 80 was the automobile to have as Emanuele Pirro dominated the roost, earlier than doubling up in 1995 with the A4. Rinaldo Capello then picked up the baton when Pirro moved to the German championship for 1996, though CiBiEmme’s Emanuele Naspetti put up a powerful battle and took the title all the way down to the wire. He was left to rue a stop-go penalty for contact with Audi’s Yvan Muller within the Vallelunga finale that dropped him to 3rd within the standings behind his team-mate Johnny Cecotto, a driver Wyss de Araujo charges as “in all probability inside the very best two or three drivers I’ve had”.
Naspetti made up for his disappointment in 1997 by taking the title, however the brand new Alfa Romeo 156 and Fabrizio Giovanardi proved an unbeatable mixture over the subsequent two years. Then adopted a merger between the Italian and German championships to type European Tremendous Touring Cup for 2000, however Giovanardi was once more the person to beat as CiBiEmme’s lead driver Gianni Morbidelli completed third within the factors.
After instability had dominated his time in F1, touring automobiles represented the primary time Wyss de Araujo had been capable of really get his tooth right into a workforce and happy his need to “show that I may follow a job for 10 years”. He reckons “I in all probability would have stayed there ceaselessly” had the workforce not misplaced its works assist on the finish of 2000.
CiBiEmme switched to the Tremendous Manufacturing class for 2001, however Morbidelli solely gained as soon as and completed fifth. The next 12 months within the European Touring Automobile Championship, which had adopted the FIA’s new Tremendous 2000 guidelines, was a fair better disappointment with a JAS Motorsport-built Honda Civic as Euro F3000 race winner Salvatore Tavano did not file a degree.
“Each race we had a distinct engine,” remembers Wyss de Araujo. “The automobile was good, however typically the engine got here the evening earlier than the primary free observe and you’d see that the exhaust wouldn’t match and issues like that. Not simple! On the finish of the season, we had it on the pace just like the non-public Alfas, so we went from being hopeless to the precise path after which the programme stopped.”
An opportunity dialog at a take a look at additionally attended by Coloni’s Method 3 workforce prompted a return to the Italian squad and single-seaters for the 2003-04 F3000 campaigns, earlier than Wyss de Araujo joined Campos for the brand new period of GP2 in 2005. He would keep till 2017.
After two barren seasons, Campos turned a winner when Giorgio Pantano joined Vitaly Petrov in 2007. Lucas di Grassi joined Petrov in 2008 as Campos gained the workforce’s championship. By this stage it had already secured funding from Alejandro Agag, who Wyss de Araujo had persuaded to take Pantano regardless of the skilled Italian’s lack of funds, and it might be entered underneath the Addax banner from 2009 to 2013 because the businessman took total management. The workforce was moved from its base in Alzira, half an hour south of Valencia, to a brand new website near the airport, however Wyss de Araujo confirms “the manpower was all the time the identical” with Chris Murphy persevering with as technical director.
Longest profession stint got here at Campos, which took a primary GP2 win at Magny-Cours in 2007 with Pantano and went on to win two groups’ titles
Photograph by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Photographs
Romain Grosjean was Nico Hulkenberg’s closest championship challenger in 2009 till he graduated mid-season to F1, however Petrov nonetheless completed second because the workforce additionally completed runner-up within the groups’ standings. That outcome was repeated in 2010, when Sergio Perez completed second to Pastor Maldonado, then Addax took the groups’ title once more in 2011 with Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde.
Nevertheless, the subsequent two years have been troublesome. Addax slipped to eighth in 2012 with Johnny Cecotto Jr and Josef Kral, then in 2013 went winless for the primary time since 2006. Drivers Jake Rosenzweig and Rio Haryanto managed simply 22 factors between them because the workforce slid to twelfth within the groups’ standings. “Then Agag went into Method E and he gave all the fabric again to Adrian Campos, so we moved again within the previous workshop the place we had begun,” provides Wyss de Araujo.
The wins returned together with the Campos title for 2014, with Arthur Pic claiming the Hungary function. Haryanto returned in 2015 and upstaged Pic with three victories, lifting the workforce from sixth to fourth, however it slipped again to sixth in 2016 regardless of Mitch Evans main Sean Gelael in a 1-2 on the Crimson Bull Ring. The 2017 season following GP2’s rebranding as Method 2 was disappointing, with no wins, though Campos did finish the 12 months with the tantalising line-up of Lando Norris and Alex Palou…
“I used to be not so good in speaking to the drivers, regarding them, as a result of I used to be too onerous with them. However then in a sure second, you get extra mature and be taught it”
Peter Wyss de Araujo
Looking for a brand new problem, Wyss de Araujo bit the electrical bug for 2018 and have become a efficiency engineer with the Dragon Method E outfit. He spent two seasons with Jay Penske’s squad, however having settled in Valencia, the requirement to maneuver to England when COVID struck was unappealing.
Wyss de Araujo loved the technical freedom, as he was “allowed to construct my very own dampers, to do the rear-suspension which is a part of the homologation” and going into tremendous particulars on simulation work devising power administration methods. “However at a sure second actually I missed a correct engine,” he provides.
Two extra seasons in single-seaters with HWA (F2) and Jenzer (F3) adopted, earlier than Wyss de Araujo launched into his newest problem in sportscar racing for 2023. He’d labored with Group Virage founder Philippe Gautheron at Campos between 2007 and 2012, and once more from 2014 to 2017, and was pleased to simply accept an invite to run its LMP2 automobile within the ELMS. The squad’s pro-am lineup of Tatiana Calderon, Ian Rodriguez and Alex Mattschull took a finest end of sixth at Spa.
“It’s a brand new problem and you’ve got three drivers, they aren’t the identical high quality and even the identical peak,” he says. “They’ll inform you various things concerning the automobile stability, so it’s important to discover a compromise with three individuals. It’s from the human perspective fairly difficult but in addition fairly fascinating.
Wyss de Araujo, proper, loved his time in Method E with Dragon however did not need to relocate from Valencia
Photograph by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Photographs
“It’s transferring in the direction of utilizing extra the driving simulator to show them easy methods to drive, a problem which is new. Earlier than, I had skilled drivers, you didn’t have to show them. I used to be not so good in speaking to the drivers, regarding them, as a result of I used to be too onerous with them. However then in a sure second, you get extra mature and be taught it.”
Though the Le Mans 24 Hours stays a field to be checked, Wyss de Araujo stresses he doesn’t have a motorsport bucket listing. However he’s clear that, if he did, there are many issues that aren’t on it. And he hasn’t excluded the potential for at some point engineering Stateside.
“In the long run all of it comes all the way down to what you need; are you optimistic or detrimental?” he concludes. “If you’re optimistic, you’ll all the time discover the facet of the troublesome scenario after which make the very best out of this. And proper now, it’s making racing drivers faster.”
A brand new expertise got here in 2023 as Wyss de Araujo took the plunge in sportscar racing with Group Virage within the ELMS
Photograph by: Eric Le Galliot
Recommendation for engineers from Peter Wyss de Araujo
- Curiosity may be very useful in motorsport as a result of you’ll attempt to learn the way issues work for your self, not solely take heed to what others say. There are folks that say, ‘when it’s moist, the tyre stress has to go up’ and I say, ‘due to what, inform me bodily’ and it’ll come out, ‘within the workforce I used to be in earlier than, the technical director instructed me that’s what they do’. ‘Yeah, however give me a bodily rationalization of what’s the cause, not that your boss instructed you to take action’. I drive individuals to make use of their brains, since you need to perceive why one thing is like that, then you may focus on it as a bunch. Possibly you’ll come to an answer meaning you do one thing completely different to how you probably did it for 30 years. This is among the most precious classes you need to be taught, to assume for your self, take accountability for choices and be capable of justify what you say with cause.
- Use your head to make widespread sense choices as a result of there’s nothing magic, it’s solely physics.
- You don’t have to be a super-genius, however you want a variety of dedication. Ardour and onerous work brings you the outcome. If you wish to develop into higher in your job, that’s the way in which to do it.
- What you research isn’t related. An engineering course is sweet however physics and arithmetic are additionally good, it doesn’t essentially must be mechanical engineering.
- Don’t be afraid, it’s important to bounce in.
- Realizing your persona is necessary, and there are assessments you are able to do like Crimson Bull’s ‘Wingfinder’. All people who involves work right here, I make them do that to know themselves higher. I’ve executed it on myself and it picked up some good things the place I ought to enhance.
Wyss de Araujo believes curiosity is a useful commodity for engineers
Photograph by: Jed Leicester / Motorsport Photographs
