SA’s living legend Rory Byrne relives his glory days
SOUTH African multiple Formula 1 World Championship-winning racecar designer Rory Byrne held his audience rapt as he related to highlights of his incredible career at a charity function in aid of Thrive Hout Bay at the Crossley & Webb sports car showrooms in Cape Town last Thursday.
Byrne, who has retired from a full-time role still spends much of his time working as an F1 design consultant for Ferrari.
“I spend half of my time in Maranello and I am in constant contact with the team when back home in Thailand or visiting family and friends in South Africa,” Rory confirmed.
Humble and understated as ever, Byrne explained that he is currently working on the 2017 Ferrari F1 challenger. “It’s all change for next year, so this is a big project,” Byrne pointed out. “We will have wider tyres and they have allowed us far more scope for aerodynamics, so there is a good chance the cars will be quicker than ever - two, maybe three seconds a lap faster with more power, more downforce and more grip.”
Looking back over the years, Byrne reflected on growing up and playing with chemicals as a kid - an activity that saw to him getting 54 stitches in his hand when an explosive device ignited prematurely in his back yard one afternoon. His intrigue in extreme chemicals saw Rory off to study chemical engineering. A little known fact is that Rory was also a throw-glider world champion while at university - his obsession with aerodynamics and a good cricket bowling arm conspiring to twice win an international contest.
Later, Rory bought a Ford Anglia, which was soon upped from 40 to 140 kilowatts and winning Kyalami races in the hands of a friend. “I was never a good racer. I can do good lap times on my own, but not so good with other cars around,”he admits.
Byrne later teamed up with driver Roy Klomfass and they went to England in 1974, where they bought an old Formula Ford Royale and modified it to be competitive.
Then the owner of Royale passed away and the bookkeeper took over and appointed Rory as designer. Royales were soon the cars to have in the Junior formulae and when clients Toleman decided to go Formula 2 racing, Rory was offered the job to engineer their cars. After struggling against the works March cars, Toleman decided to build its own F2 chassis and with Rory’s aptitude to read the loopholes in the rules, Toleman dominated the 1980 F2 championship.
“There are always loopholes in the rules,” Rory grinned. “Those who take best advantage of those loopholes will be the fastest in racing and that year was a perfect example of how a loophole can win you a championship because there were two contradictory rules we exploited to be able to run that car closer to the ground. “By the time the rest found out, we were too far ahead to be beaten.”
Toleman then moved up to F1 and Rory’s path from there through Toleman’s transformation to Benetton and then on to his part in the Schumacher-Todt-Brawn-ByrneFerrari dream team is very well documented, with Rory Byrne-designed cars winning 99 grands prix and seven world championships in all.
The evening was a great success overall, with enthusiasts lingering late discussing an enthralling evening past, while Thrive Hout Bay, which is run by Rory’s enigmatic sister Bronwen raised almost R500 000 through actions and other fundraising efforts. The money will be used to run several community projects. Visit www.thrive.org.za for more information.