Size

In my last column, I mentioned Justin Wilson. I have ne­ver met the guy nor have I invested in his future, it’s just that he is 75-inches tall and so has had to have a car built specially for him. Because of the constraints of the modern aerodynamic package, this difference is not readily noticed, which contrasts with the days when Ferrari would simply make a longer car when running Mike Parkes – all 79 inches of him.

There was a time when racing cars were designed for drivers of all shapes and sizes. Then, in 1988, Adrian Newey and Nick Wirth came up with the March 881 with its high nose and narrow cockpit, and it worked. Come 1989 and most teams had copied the March. Because the FIA did not lay down minimum cockpit dimensions, this more or less favored the vertically challenged, even though each generation now tends to be taller, on average, than the generation which bred it.