Nichols interview

[Terry Rock]

Bombshell interview about the McLaren MP4-4 and the origins of it's design.

 

[Rob Every]

Confusing stuff.

I have a book by the author of this alleged McLaren 4/4 book and I am now tempted to think most of it was garbage.

I see no reason why Nichols would be lying, Murray is still in business designing all sorts of stuff so stand to gain from being the main man who designed it, but this is all a bit weird, Nichols didn't design much else after this supercar, whereas Murray designed all sorts before and after, but as Steve says the BT55 was a complete and utter disaster but the 89 and 90 cars were OK, so who knows the real truth!

My only thing I do like here is the stuff about the author of this book which is not much to do with who designed it but about the fact the author was up Murrays arse, clearly allowed himself to be led by a charismatic man and the fact Steve and numerous others asked for the changes to be made that clearly never were made. the signees were large in number and the mistakes very many. How this man has continued to write at such a rate is beyond me, he should ahve been signed off after this!!

 

[Terry Rock]

From the interview, it sounds like Gordan had very little to do with the actual design of the car.
Sounds like the team at McLaren were well underway with it and he made just a few suggestions.
For Gordon to have taken full credit for it's design (if the statement from Steve is indeed the case) and not clarify, is a bit dishonest.
The fact that the collectively signed letter by engineering stating their feelings to McLaren is now published, will be telling.

 

[Rob Every]

That latter was published a very long time ago, as was the book I think. The author sadly is renowned for doing this kind of thing, and sadly has a huge catalogue of stuff written, possibly now rather tainted by those if us that know this, I have a book of his about the turbo era, and even now you can feel a lot of the stuff in there is garbage

 

[Antony Snook]

The designer is the person who is responsable for airodynamics. Get it wrong you will be at the back of the pack. Do a good job and in the middle but a ecelent job will make a winner. This is why Max Verstappen is a world champion. Adrian Newlley takes championships wherever he goes. Williams Mansell, Prost, Hill. McLAren Hakkinen, Alonso, Red Bull Vettel and Verstappen. They are one of many people in F1 that take little credit for what they do. The big name designers are etched in History like the drivers that drove the cars.

 

[Antony Snook]

It is verry strange about how Gordon Murray tried to take credit for Nicols work. In my magazine there is a term called Gardening Leave. Basicaly it is what happens when a key person goes from team A to team B. And this enshores technical data and private information dose not go to team B. Protecting interlectual property of team A. Basically its a 1 year vacation and break before joining a new team. We all know the story of Nigel Stepney and Mr Mculugh and a incident involving photo copies of plans between Ferrari and McLaren. And force India (Now Aston Martin) using imagrey to re generatre airo for McLaren on their car.