Geoff Ferris | |
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Born | 2 August 1936 |
Geoff Ferris (born 2 August 1936) [1] is a British racing car designer who has designed open-wheel racing cars for Penske Racing (Formula One and CART), [2] [3] [4] Lotus (Formula One), Rebaque (Formula One) and Brabham (Formula 2, Formula Atlantic/B, Formula 3, [5] and F5000 [6] ).
He has twice (1980 and 1982) won the Louis Schwitzer Award for innovation and engineering excellence in the field of racing car design. [7]
Motor Racing Developments Ltd., commonly known as Brabham, was a British racing car manufacturer and Formula One racing team. It was founded in 1960 by the Australian driver Jack Brabham and the British-Australian designer Ron Tauranac. The team had a successful thirty-year history, winning four FIA Formula One Drivers' and two Constructors' World Championships, starting with two successive wins in 1966 and 1967. Jack Brabham's 1966 Drivers' Championship remains the only such achievement using a car bearing the driver's own name.
The Surtees Racing Organisation was a race team that spent nine seasons as a constructor in Formula One, Formula 2, and Formula 5000.
Ian Gordon Murray, is a South African-British designer of Formula One racing cars for Brabham and McLaren and the McLaren F1 high-performance road car. Founder and CEO of Gordon Murray Design and Gordon Murray Automotive, he has subsequently designed and built a number of sports cars and a variety of other automotive vehicles.
David Philip Brabham is an Australian racing driver and one of the most successful and experienced specialists in sports car racing. He has won three international Sports Car series and is one of four Australians to have won the Le Mans 24 Hour sports car race, winning the event in 2009. Brabham won the American Le Mans Series in 2009 and 2010. He also competed in Formula One, racing for the Brabham and Simtek teams in 1990 and 1994, respectively. Brabham is the youngest son of three-time Formula One world champion Sir Jack Brabham, brother to Geoff Brabham and Gary Brabham. He is also brother-in-law to Mike Thackwell, father to Sam Brabham and uncle to Matthew Brabham.
Graham Peter McRae was a racing driver from New Zealand.
Derek Reginald Bell is a British racing driver. In sportscar racing, he won the Le Mans 24 hours five times, the Daytona 24 three times and the World Sportscar Championship twice. He also raced in Formula One for the Ferrari, Wheatcroft, McLaren, Surtees and Tecno teams. He has been described by fellow racer Hans-Joachim Stuck as one of the most liked drivers of his generation.
Gary Thomas Brabham is an Australian former professional racing driver. He is the son of three-time World Formula One Champion Sir Jack Brabham and the brother of Le Mans winners Geoff and David Brabham.
Formula 5000 was an open wheel, single seater auto-racing formula that ran in different series in various regions around the world from 1968 to 1982. It was originally intended as a low-cost series aimed at open-wheel racing cars that no longer fit into any particular formula. The '5000' denomination comes from the maximum 5.0 litre engine capacity allowed in the cars, although many cars ran with smaller engines. Manufacturers included McLaren, Eagle, March, Lola, Lotus, Elfin, Matich and Chevron.
The Australian Drivers' Championship is a motor racing championship contested annually since 1957 by drivers of cars complying with Australia's premier open-wheeler racing category. This category was determined by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport until 2023. From 2024 the championship is contested by drivers of cars complying with Australia's premier open-wheeler racing category as determined by the Australian Auto Sport Alliance. Each year, the winner is awarded a Gold Star - from 1957 - 2023 the CAMS Gold Star and from 2024 the AASA Gold Star.
Edmonton International Speedway, also known as Speedway Park, was a 251-acre (1.02 km2) multi-track auto racing facility located in the present Cumberland and Hudson neighbourhoods of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The facility featured a 1⁄4-mile (400 m) dragstrip, a 2.53-mile (4.07 km) 14-turn road course, and a 1⁄4-mile short oval. At its peak, it had capacity for over 30,000 fans.
Michael "Mike" Kranefuss is a German-born American former head of Ford Motor Company's International Motorsports division for 12 years. After leaving Ford, he became a NASCAR team owner.
The 1971 Australian Drivers’ Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title open to Australian Formula 1 and Australian Formula 2 racing cars. It was the fifteenth Australian Drivers' Championship and the first to feature cars complying with a new for 1971 Australian Formula 1 which permitted cars with production based V8 engines of up to 5 litre capacity or racing engines of up to eight cylinders and up to 2 litre capacity. The championship winner was awarded the 1971 CAMS Gold Star and the title of Australian Champion Driver.
Leonard E. Terry was an English racing car designer and engineer, known for his work with Lotus, BRM and Eagle. He also designed chassis for many other teams, including ERA and Aston Martin and produced his own car in which he competed.
Michael Roy Pilbeam is a British motorsport designer and engineer known for his work with BRM, Lotus, Surtees and his own company, Pilbeam Racing Designs. An early design was the experimental four wheel drive Formula One BRM P67 of 1964. As of 2014, Pilbeam's company continued to produce hillclimb cars and sports prototype chassis for endurance racing.
The Brabham BT43 was the only Formula 5000 racing car built by Motor Racing Developments (MRD). Initiated by Ron Tauranac, designed by Geoff Ferris, and built by a team including Nick Goozee (monocoque) and Bob Paton (construction), it was one of the last cars produced by MRD before MRD was closed by the then new Brabham owner Bernie Ecclestone. Based on the Formula Two Brabham BT40 the BT43 featured a modified monocoque that incorporated the triangular cross section pioneered by the Brabham BT42 Formula One car which was designed by Gordon Murray. This distinctive pyramid shape not only kept the aerodynamic "stagnation point" low but also neatly allowed the incorporation of a "crushable structure" as required by the 1973 regulations which specified that all fuel tanks were to be protected by deformable structures. Engine and gearbox were the then de facto F5000 standard combination of a Chevrolet 302 cubic inch engine in an unstressed mounting and a Hewland DG300 gearbox. The fitment of these into what was a relatively small Formula Two sized car presented some design challenges. Front suspension components were BT40 while rear suspension components were a combination of Formula One and BT40.
Keith Holland is a British former racing driver from England who competed in various classes of racing in the 1960s and 1970s. He is known for winning the 1969 Madrid Grand Prix in a Formula 5000 car in a field which contained several Formula One entries. He was also a regular competitor in the European Formula 5000 Championship finishing third in the title standings on two occasions.
The Penske PC1 was a Formula One racing car developed and raced by Penske Racing during the 1974 and 1975 Formula One seasons. The car was designed by Geoff Ferris, and was raced by drivers Mark Donohue and John Watson. The PC1 entered and competed in 12 Grands Prix, and was replaced by the Penske PC3 in the 1976 season.
The Penske PC-10 is a CART open-wheel race car, designed by Penske Racing, which was constructed for competition in the 1982 season. Designed by Geoff Ferris, it is considered possibly the most dominant Penske race car design ever and that from a team that typically dominated. Rick Mears has been quoted as acknowledging this was his favorite racecar chassis ever. Twelve total were made (1-12), six raced by Penske (1-6), with four confirmed destroyed. They were manufactured at Penske Cars, Ltd. in Poole, England during 1982, and delivered to Penske Racing, Inc., in Reading, Pennsylvania. So outstanding was the PC-10's design, it won the prestigious Louis Schwitzer Award for innovation and engineering excellence in the field of race car design at the Indianapolis 500 in 1982. The PC-10s were active in the years 1982–1984. In fact, the PC-10 was ultimately much better than the following year PC-11, so Roger Penske bought back one of the PC-10s he had sold to another team for the 1983 season, and which then won another race for his team.
The Penske PC-6 is a USAC and CART open-wheel race car, designed by British designer Geoff Ferris at Penske Racing, which was constructed for competition in the 1978 season. It also notably successfully won the 1979 Indianapolis 500, being driven by Rick Mears.
The Penske PC-5 was Penske Racing's first USAC Indy car. It was designed by British designer Geoff Ferris, and was constructed for competition in the 1977 season. It was notably the first time Penske used their own chassis at the Indy 500, and the first car to clock a qualifying single-lap record of over 200 mph (320 km/h) at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.