Multimatic named Racecar Aerodynamicist of the Year
Multimatic Engineering was awarded the Dino Toso award for Racecar Aerodynamicist of the Year for its work on the Ford GT at the 2016 Race Tech awards.
The award was presented to Mark Handford, Multimatic’s chief aerodynamicis for the Ford GT, who said, ““I think this award is a great way of keeping Dino’s name alive, I met him a few times and have some good memories of him. The Ford GT project has been a great project, although I’ve never been employed by Ford, I have worked with the company for nearly 30 years.”
The GT’s aero development was a joint effort led by Handford and Ford Performance’s Bernie Marcus. The GT was designed as a mid-engined car from the start, it meant that the aero and styling teams could focus on the car’s frontal area, which tends to be smaller for mid-engined cars, leading to reduced drag. According to Multimatic, the aerodynamic lessons learned from the car are being proliferated across the production car range as aerodynamic efficiency is a Ford theme.
“The beginning of this programme was a bit strange,” Handford added, “we were spirited into the Ford facility in Dearborn and the car was designed in a basement which was a tornado shelter, so I thought ‘oh dear here we go’. But it all came good. It was kept quiet for a very long time and the car had a number of different themes, which meant that six months were spent looking at them, but we came up with something that looks quite exciting and different. We then had the job of putting an aero package on it for Le Mans and WEC which was just as interesting. Thank you very much to Race Tech for the award, it’s a great honour.”