BE AN ENGINEER
Henri Durand looks back on the human value of F1
Henri Durand The drive to succeed – and overcoming a personal ‘technical detail’
Henri Durand hasn’t relied on any kind of silver bullet during a career that’s now well into its fourth decade. Instead, his approach has always been that maintaining focus and a strong work ethic can overcome any challenge.
Sharing the name of his father, an amateur racer in Ferraris and Bugattis, Frenchman Durand studied aeronautical engineering. It was a path that he hoped “would give me some credibility in the eyes of the Formula 1 teams”.
Now 58 and working as chief chassis engineer at Toyota Racing Development USA, Durand has achieved success across Indycar and NASCAR as well as in F1. But perhaps the most historically significant element of his background is his decade at Mclaren, for this was a period of rapid change at the pinnacle of motor racing. Having worked with John Barnard on the radical Ferrari 640, Durand joined the Woking squad in the summer of 1990.
Replacing Mike Gascoyne as head of aerodynamics, he presided over the massive growth of his department as Mclaren and its rivals embarked on a technological arms race. The aero team morphed into two parallel groups, one finessing current designs while the other evaluated future concepts. It was this restructure that contributed to back-to-back title success for Mika Hakkinen in 1998 and ’99.
Like many other senior aero people of the time, his next move was to take on overall responsibility for design, and he joined
Prost Grand Prix as technical director at the turn of the millennium.
“I was 40 years old, I decided that was worth the risk, and I don’t regret it,” he reflects. “While it didn’t work out [the team scored just four points in 2001], it still gave me a human experience, which I value.”
Being an engineer, Durand regards himself as a problem solver first and foremost. Just three years ago, however, he was faced with the kind of potentially life-changing problem no-one anticipates. But losing a limb in a surfing accident is something he now shrugs off as only a “technical detail” – a motivating factor in his life rather than any kind of hindrance.
“I had a little bit of a mishap in 2015,” Durand recalls. “I lost my leg after falling in a surfing accident and that was really just a trigger: I had a blood clot and I lost my leg.
“I have a prosthetic leg below the knee but I still surf and I row very competitively. I row with people who don’t have a handicap and frankly it’s not a handicap, it’s just a technical detail.”
Unsurprisingly, Durand’s solution to his injury is engineering-led: “My prosthesis, which I wear for rowing, we designed it [at TRD USA] and Joe Gibbs Racing manufactured it out of solid titanium, while my socket is a carbon component. I’ve got two of them. We made them here because my prosthetist was not able to make one that gave me the comfort. That’s the funny part, so I have a racing leg!
“If you watch me in the street walking, if you don’t know [that he’s wearing a prosthesis], you can’t guess,” he continues. “I’m still surfing with a prosthetic leg, it makes no difference. So, it’s really a technical detail. It’s not a disability, it’s a technicality – that’s life.
“If you are competitive, you never have that feeling [of being powerless], you always try hard – and in my opinion, that is necessary to be successful in motor racing, or any other sport.”