Making the good better - A vision for Formula One: Step Seven

Tony Purnell

24/09/2013

"The leadership of a sport, or for that matter almost anything, is a risky affair," writes Tony Purnell. "Put the right person in at the top of the sport and one can move mountains. Put the wrong person in and one can almost kill it off."

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Making the good better - A vision for Formula One: Step Six

Tony Purnell

20/08/2013

In his latest piece, Tony Purnell ponders where the next generation of (British) F1 drivers are coming from... and at what cost.

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Making the good better - A vision for Formula One: Step Five

Tony Purnell

23/07/2013

Could financial rules be successfully implemented in F1 even if the political issues could be placed aside or if the FIA was strong enough to implement such regulations because they concluded it was the right thing to do?

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Making the good better - A vision for Formula One: Step Four

Tony Purnell

25/06/2013

In his latest feature, former team boss and FIA advisor Tony Purnell has three questions for readers as he ponders the future of Formula One and the anomaly as to whether it is a sport or a business.

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Making the good better - A vision for Formula One: Step Three

Tony Purnell

19/05/2013

Former F1 team boss and FIA advisor, Tony Purnell, reveals the thinking behind the drive to improve F1's entertainment factor - including Bernie Ecclestone's very odd proposal - insisting that all is fine as it is.

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Making the good better - A vision for Formula One: Step Two

Tony Purnell

11/04/2013

"There's always an elephant in the room with Formula One when it comes to a fair competition: Money," writes Tony Purnell in the second of his series of articles.

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Making the good better - A vision for Formula One: Step One

Tony Purnell

20/03/2013

In the first of a series of articles in which he addresses the many problems facing Formula One, Tony Purnell claims that it is time for the sport to clean up its image, the first step being the establishment of a new FIA.

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Other features by Tony Purnell

BIOGRAPHY

Before entering motorsport, Tony Purnell had a lengthy academic career in England and the United States. Having gained a scholarship to study Mechanical Engineering at Manchester University, he subsequently won the Kennedy Scholarship at MIT where he completed his Masters Degree. His dissertation was on the subject of Formula One aerodynamics.

After a period at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Purnell returned to the UK as a researcher at Cambridge University. Here he began work on wind tunnel analysis software for the Lola organisation and consulted for the short-lived FORCE F1 team.

He went on to found Pi Research around his software and by the late 1990s had built the company into a highly successful global electronics business. In 1999 the company was purchased by the Ford Motor Company.

Still under Purnell's management, Pi Research was made part of Ford's Premiere Performance Division alongside Cosworth and the Jaguar Formula One team.

Tony was Team Principal of the Jaguar Formula One Team in 2003 and 2004 and when Ford announced its withdrawal from F1 at the end of 2004 he set about trying to locate a new owner. On November 15, 2004, Red Bull announced that it had purchased the team and Red Bull Racing was born.

Tony subsequently worked for the FIA as an advisor to Max Mosley where his focus was on costs and was the driving force behind the (then) FIA President in the budget cap moves of 2009.

Tony also worked with Peter Wright on regulations to make the sport more entertaining. They also put together the main concepts for a new powertrain, originally for 2012.

Today he lives a quiet life teaching students in the Engineering Department at Cambridge and leading the use of technology within cycling as part of UKSport's Olympic strategy.

Email: editor@pitpass.com