Sergey Sirotkin, Williams, Circuit de Catalunya, 2018

Williams designer Ed Wood steps down after 12 years

2018 F1 season

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Williams confirms its long-standing chief designer Ed Wood has stepped down from the team.

Ed Wood, Williams, 2017
Ed Wood, Williams, 2017
Wood, who has been with the team since 2006, has “decided to leave Williams for personal reasons”, the team announced.

Ferrari gave Wood his first job in F1 as a research and design engineer in 1998. Following a spell with Mitsubishi’s World Rally Championship team he returned to F1 with Renault in 2002. Wood then spent three years at Prodrive before returning to F1 again with Williams.

Wood had been a “huge asset” to the team, it said in a statement.

“As chief designer, Ed has been instrumental in many successes during his time with the team, including the FW36 and FW37 cars which secured third place in the constructors’ championship in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

“The team would like to express its gratitude to Ed for his hard work over the past twelve years; his experience, skill and passion for engineering has been a huge asset to Williams.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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10 comments on “Williams designer Ed Wood steps down after 12 years”

  1. What really was the work he was doing in Williams? i mean in which department?

    1. Maybe in the area of design, perhaps in a directive role. I think you should read the article to find out more.

    2. @bluechris, Although his background is in mechanical engineering, I suspect that he would have been less involved in the detailed day to day design work (though there may have been occasions where he could have provided specialist input into projects). Instead, as @faulty notes, his role was probably more geared towards co-ordinating design work between departments in order to achieve a particular design philosophy, which he would have helped develop (i.e. he’d probably set the broad brush strokes of what the team wanted to achieve, but the finer detail would be worked out by those working within specific departments).

  2. Duncan Snowden
    10th May 2018, 16:06

    Back to directing B-movies, then…

  3. The must have found a pay-designer ;-)

    1. Williams is strollin’ out of the woods…

    2. Ahah, good one, you’re right I guess!

  4. Matteo (@m-bagattini)
    11th May 2018, 8:26

    @coldfly this was below the belt, good one!

  5. Best wishes to Ed in whatever he’s doing next. Hope the replacement chief designer is in a position to turn the boat around.

  6. The heads are rolling Ferrari-style now they’ve hit the back of the grid.

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