Patrick (Pat) Bruce Reith Symonds (born 11 June 1953 in England) is the former Executive Director of Engineering of the Renault Formula One team and currently a consultant to the Marussia F1 team.
After Gresham's School, Holt, Oxford Polytechnic and Cranfield University where he studied for a Masters, Symonds worked in the lower motor sport categories and joined the Toleman team in the early 1980s. As Toleman grew, was taken over to become Benetton, and was subsequently sold and renamed Renault F1, Symonds remained with the team and worked his way through the technical ranks.
Symonds served as an engineer for many of the team's drivers, including Alessandro Nannini and Teo Fabi, and he made a brief move to the abortive Reynard F1 project with then-chief designer Rory Byrne in 1991.
In the mid-1990s he was Michael Schumacher's race engineer while also assuming the role of Head of Research and Development. Symonds remained with the team when Schumacher departed to Ferrari in 1996. When Ross Brawn was also lured to the Italian team a year later Symonds became Technical Director.
When Mike Gascoyne joined Benetton in 2001 Symonds was promoted to Executive Director of Engineering, a post which he retained though the transition to Renault ownership in 2002.
In July 2009, in what became known as "Crashgate" by the media, Nelson Piquet, Jr. claimed Symonds asked him to deliberately crash at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix in order to help team-mate Fernando Alonso. [1]
The ING Renault F1 Team released a statement on 16 September 2009 stating that Symonds was no longer part of the team.[2] Symonds was subsequently suspended from F1 events for 5 years after expressing his “eternal regret and shame” to the FIA World Motor Sport Council.[3] However, his ban was overturned by the French Tribunal de Grande Instance on January 5, 2010, and he was also paid €5,000 in compensation.[4] In April, he and Briatore reached an out-of-court settlement with the FIA where he could return to F1 in 2013 but may be a consultant to a current Formula 1 team in the meantime.[5]
In 2011, Symonds returned to F1 as a consultant for the Virgin Racing (now Marussia F1) team in order to conduct a thorough overview of its operation, following a disappointing start to its second season in the sport. Shortly afterwards, the team parted company with existing technical director Nick Wirth; Symonds is believed to have effectively taken his place, although he is still only a consultant due to the terms of his ban.[6]
Symonds also has a column in the F1 Racing magazine. He maintains his links to Cranfield University by serving on the committee for the MSc Motorsport Engineering and Management.
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