Brian Lisles
Brian Lisles recalls working for two giants of motorsport, Ken Tyrrell and Carl Haas
Discover the top tips from working under Ken Tyrrell and Carl Haas
Loyalty is a rare trait in the cut-throat world of motorsport. But in a career that started in 1977 and only finished when the lights at Newman/haas Racing were finally turned off for good in 2015, Englishman Brian Lisles worked for just two teams, both run by no-nonsense titans of the sport – Ken Tyrrell and Carl Haas.
Having gained experience in Clubmans racing while a student at Loughborough in the 1960s, Lisles continued to design and construct his own series of Clubmans cars while working at Chrysler UK and British Steel, before landing at Tyrrell. It was the start of the post-derek Gardener era and Lisles quickly got stuck in, his varied roles including chief designer and race engineer.
He soon won the trust of team patriarch Tyrrell, whose honesty and integrity won loyalty from his employees despite the lure of a better wage at nearby Mclaren.
“He always paid his bills regardless of his circumstances and never hung anyone out to dry,” says 73-year-old Lisles. “It was the same with Carl. He was honest, always paid on the dot, his word was his bond. I was lucky to work for men with such integrity.”
Despite still using the venerable Ford
DFV engine, Tyrrell remained a competitive force into the 1980s. Lisles engineered Michele Alboreto to Tyrrell’s first win in four years at Las Vegas in 1982, and repeated the feat the following year at Detroit. But by 1988, the team’s lack of budget was beginning to tell, as Jonathan Palmer and Julian Bailey sometimes failed to qualify. At the request of his homesick
American wife, Lisles departed for NHR in 1989 to engineer Mario Andretti.
He had no oval experience, so his first race at Phoenix was an eye-opener – “all I did was carry the stopwatch!” – but he soon got to grips with the minute details required and formed a good partnership with Michael Andretti, winning the title together in 1991.
“Mario’s talent is well-documented, but Michael was a huge talent, one of the most under-appreciated of the lot,” Lisles says. “He was an unstoppable force in a race.”
Lisles became NHR’S general manager in 2000 and, after Cristiano da Matta swept to the CART title in 2002, he implemented the increasingly systematic event preparations and post-race summaries that helped NHR stay on top, as Reynard’s collapse prompted all teams to switch to Lola. He took pride in the team generating its own engineering talent and Craig Hampson’s rise through the organisation from data engineer to race engineering Sebastien Bourdais to four titles between 2004 and 2007 reinforced his mantra that “everybody is crucial”.
“If they do their job well, everybody can in some way make the car and therefore the team better,” he explains. “Not necessarily in terms of points of downforce, but in the smooth running of the team so you don’t have any failures, everybody gets to bed on time and is in better shape the next day.”
Following the Champ Car-indycar merger in 2008, NHR won first time out at St Petersburg with Graham Rahal, and Justin Wilson added a second victory that year in Detroit. But when Newman lost his fight with cancer one month later, it was the beginning of the end. Amid increasing sponsorship struggles, NHR fought on until Haas pulled the plug at the end of 2011. Lisles stayed behind with a skeleton crew restoring the Haas collection and, after 26 years of service, retired in 2015.
“I used to say to the guys, ‘I know I’ve done my job well when you don’t need me’,” he says. “When everything runs smoothly, the manager can step away and it wouldn’t make any difference.”