Nick Wirth

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Nick Wirth (born 26 March 1966) is the former owner of the Simtek Formula One team, and a former aerodynamicist and chief designer for the Benetton Formula One team.

Wirth has B.Sc.(Hons) in Mechanical Engineering (First Class) from University College London and is the youngest-ever Fellow of the Royal Institute of Mechanical Engineers.^{[citation needed]} Earlier in his career he was an aerodynamicist for the March Engineering, responsible for all aerodynamic concepts, schematics and design of windtunnel model components for the 1988 and 1989 Leyton House March cars. In addition, he conceived and designed all components of the March active suspension system,^{[citation needed]} which ran successfully in February 1989.

From October 1993 to June 1995, Wirth was founder, owner, and Technical Director of the Simtek Formula One team, that first appeared in the 1994 Formula One season. Simtek Research provided the team with engineering and design for the cars. Uniquely for the team principal of a Formula One team, Wirth was a regular contributor to the Usenet newsgroup rec.autos.sport, describing the team's progress.

From 1996 until 1999 Wirth was Chief Designer and later a board member of the Benetton Formula One team.

In 1999 Wirth founded RoboScience, creators of the RS-01 RoboDog.

In 2006 Wirth began working for the FIA in the Casumaro windtunnel in Italy on the split rear wing design that the FIA proposed for the 2008 F1 season. In 2007 he became involved with the Acura programme in the American Le Mans Series.