John Barnard

[munudeges]

John Barnard contributed a massive amount to Formula 1. He's easily up there with Colin Chapman, if not more significant, and other designers such as Gordon Murray. Barnard is responsible for a lot of the precision and eye for detail that we saw from the eighties right up until now. He's certainly one of those people who took things on to another level.

I don't think he was caught out by aerodynamics. His Ferraris of the 1989/1990 period had nice touches in that department, but the problem with aerodynamics is how dependant you are on your wind tunnel and other infrastructure for success.

[xpensive]

John was my guiding engineering light in the mid 80's, I will never forget how he xplained his autocatic visions.

[Gerhard Berger]

http://www.f1-dictionary.110mb.com/gearbox.html

Barnard not that impressive? jesus christ ..without him Formula 1 today would be defintely not the same.We would have had the lives of Berger ,Alesi,Panis and many many more claimed not to forget ...mclaren would be not existing anymore and Schumachers titles with Ferrari would not have happened as he was one reason why he went there in the first place.
Give the man credit he was definitely caught out by aero becoming the main dominating factor and Newey and byrne excelled more in that area.

We should not forget the first reliable cf casing gearbox he did for arrows and the ingenius internal dogring gear arrangement that shortened gearbox total length considerably...I don´tz think there is any team in formula 1 that has not been heavily influenced by Johns masterful expertise.

I said what i saw of him was not impressive. I'm sure he did have a very impressive career before the mid 90s, but it is harder for me to judge those years.

Schumacher was critical of Barnard in 1996 (at least in the german press). He was not impressed by the technical department that Barnard had setup and was pushing Jean Todt to sign his former Benetton buddies Brawn and Byrne.

[munudeges]

Well, his Arrows Yamaha in the hands of Damon Hill did pass a Ferrari at Hungary. That didn't happen by accident.

Barnard's friction with Ferrari was about his refusal to decamp to Maranello. While I can understand Ferrari's need - and it probably had to be done - to do their design and engineering in Italy, I think Barnard's misgivings about moving there were about Maranello politics more than anything else. That kind of stuff always has a negative effect on the car.

We can hardly call Barnard 'unimpressive' based on that though.

[marcush.]

in those years Barnard was already scapegoat for underachieving .The engine was well below par those days and everyone put the blame at barnards door when things didnot work when he considered his role strictly to designing and building the car and leaving all the running and maintainance to Maranello wich left him very vulnerable as he was not at the track when all the frustration had to be aired and what is easier then blaming the guy who is not at the track...
1997 was still Barnards work ,even when Byrne did some development on it and it almost won the championship...so not impressive?

[timbo]

1997 was still Barnards work ,even when Byrne did some development on it and it almost won the championship...so not impressive?

Well, as I said before my view is that Barnard was having little interest in perfecting his designs from the early -90's. Look at F93, F412T1, F412T2, F310, F310B -- looks like every car is a start from scratch.
And funny that Byrne/Brawn won a bunch of titles with developed Brawn cars -- B194, F399 all based on his work (even later Ferrari's up to F2001 or F2002).
The car that DID win championships for him -- MP4-2 was a design developed for a few years, and it was based on MP4-1. Much like Newey's cars nowadays.

[Gerhard Berger]

You're right, F310B was Barnard's work (more so than the Arrows of 97, since Barnard only joined them in the Spring of 97). The car was much more conservative and did not have the reliability problems of its predecessor. Understeer and tyre degradation were still big issues which hampered the car. It almost won the championship, but i'd say that was more a reflection on Schumacher's abilities, and Williams and Villeneuve making too many mistakes.