Did you guys know the chief designer for Ferrari is South African? Yip, you heard right…we don’t only play the best rugby; we also deliver on the brainy front. The man of the moment is Rory Byrne - the creator of the Ferrari F1 car.

He has designed cars that have won over seventy Grand Prix races, six constructor's titles and five driver's titles. His creations have won Michael Schumacher back to back World titles in 1994 and 1995. And the list continues… but let’s backtracks a bit.
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Mr Byrne first became interested in motor-racing while studying at the Witwatersrand University. He started out competing and then got sidetracked by the technical aspect. Since South Africa was running a bit low on performance car parts (this was the 1960’s, Volkswagens was as ‘racy’ as you could go) he imported them and tried his hand at designing, using his mathematical knowledge (he trained as a chemist) to compensate for his lack of engineering training.

His cars did well and he decided to move to England where he climbed the ladder starting with Royale, Formula 2 and then (drum roll…) Formula one.

It was at Ferrari that Byrne made the biggest impact and achieved most of the above mentioned success. Today he leads a team of over 100 engineers, all highly specialised at fine-tuning all areas of the cars. He is ultimately responsible for thousands of decisions that all help to shave hundredths of a second off the lap times, and keep them ahead on the opposition.

His lack of an engineering background has certainly not been a handicap, although he said he's "had to pick up along the way."

Byrne's contract with the Ferrari team will expire in February 2007, when he expects he will retire.

He was quoted saying: "Motor racing is just like life only it happens 10 times faster."