Williams Martini Racing has confirmed that Dirk de Beer is to be its new head of aerodynamics, joining the company on March 1. Stories of this happening have been circulating since last summer when he disappeared from Ferrari, in the days after James Allison disappeared. De Beer arrives at Williams after a long motosport career, beginning at Imperial College in London where he was trained. His first job in the business was with Swift Engineering in San Clemente, California, where he worked on the design of IndyCars until the company quit the series in 2000. He then joined Sauber in Switzerland where the team was working a vast wind tunnel that was opened in 2003. De Beer became principal aerodynamicist with the Swiss team until it was taken over by BMW and he decided to move to Renault in 2008, where he worked under Dino Toso until the latter was forced to stand down because of illness and de Beer took over the role, working with technical directors Bob Bell and then James Allison. De Beer followed Allison to Ferrari, but now heads to Williams where he will work with Dave Wheater, a former Enstone colleague, who has been the Williams head of aerodynamic performance since the end of 2014.
De Beer will take over the role that has been held since June 2011 by Jason Somerville, who had a record in F1 with Lotus, Toyota, Williams (a first time) and prior to that TWR and MIRA, following his studies at
In recent days, Renault has also announced a new head of aerodynamics with Pete Machin joining the team from Red Bull Racing in July. Machin has been at Milton Keynes since 2002 when the team was still Jaguar Racing but he was previously a CFD Engineer at Arrows from October 1997 to April 2002, after starting his career in aerodynamics with Bombardier Aerospace. The team’s current head of aerodynamics Jon Tomlinson will (in theory) become Machin’s deputy.
joeblogsf1 
It’s all starting to come alive now, isnt’t it Joe? 🙂
Just beginning to ramp up
Fingers crossed he can sort out the aero at Williams. An area they’ve been poor in for many years.
He didn’t sort it out in Ferrari, so I doubt he’ll do it in Williams.
Where is Sommerville going? Dont tell me he is staying at Williams? With James Key TBC and Paddy as well, they arent going to have enough room in front of the drawing board!!!!!
I have no idea
Joe do you think these aerodynamic changes to the rules were the reason for Peter Prodromou rejoining Maclaren? it may be his first opportunity to out design Adrian…… if that’s even possible.
My other question is…what is the “word on the street” with regards to going back to the V8 or V10’s in the future, are manufactures open to the idea if they can develop the electric concept in Formula E? If Liberty want to create a buzz around F1 again surely it has to be one of the first discussions on the agenda.
Are there more movements in technical staff than average this year, or is it simply that there are a couple of bigger names involved (Lowe, Allison)?
Surely these distinguished recent recruits will be able to convince Williams that very fast pit stops are alone not enough
Is his nickname Drink de Beer?
I wonder Joe, is it seen as a signal of arrival among F1 staff when they get a Joe Saward blog post?
“Joe wrote about my move to [F1 team], I must have made it in F1”
Or
“Darling, I just saw Joe wrote about you on his blog this week, I’m so proud of you, it just shows all that hard work is paying off”
The moves are as much about clashes of personality or performance (lack of) than “promotions” or sign of having “arrived” or “made it”. Having worked with several of them, their engineering & man-management skills leave much to be desired.
Edit… “many” moves, not “the” moves
James Key must surely be the most coveted technical or design leaders at the mo.
The heavy hitters must be wondering what he could do with free reign and a full budget based on the superb Sauber’s and STR’s he has led the design of in recent years.