Insight: Diving Into Life As a Race Engineer
Sportscar365 sits down with race-winning race engineers to discuss the challenges of life on the pit wall…
Few sports in the world are as reliant on teamwork as endurance racing. Races, especially the major classics, are long, grueling affairs that sometimes have dozens of people working together in the pursuit of the best possible result.
While the drivers usually grab the spotlight and the headlines for their exploits behind the wheel, they can’t win races by themselves. Oftentimes, the people in the garage or on the pit wall have just as much of a role to play in the outcome of the race as the guy or girl behind the wheel of the car.
It could very well be argued that the race engineer is one of the great unsung heroes of endurance racing. You might hear them on the radio during broadcasts, but other than that, they tend to stay in the background. Their work is important, but largely takes place out of the public eye.
Which is remarkable, considering the fact that they have one of the most complex, demanding, time-consuming and high-pressure jobs in the entire paddock.
To find out what life is like as a race engineer, Sportscar365 sat down with two engineers that have played a winning role at the highest level of international sports car racing: Adam Hardy from BMW M Team WRT and Charlie Ping, who works for AWA.
Both can tell you a thing or two about winning races and championships. Hardy, hailing from the UK, currently serves as the race engineer for the No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8 in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Prior to that, he engineered the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Hypercar entry, but his resume also includes a stint in V8 Supercars, while a first five-year tenure with WRT saw him involved with the Vincent Vosse-led squad when it was still running Audi machinery in GT3.
After leaving WRT for the first time, Hardy worked as part of Manthey Racing’s factory Porsche GTE-Pro program, engineering the No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR that captured a famous 24 Hours of Le Mans class win in 2018 and subsequently won the world championship with Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen.
Ping, meanwhile, most recently engineered AWA’s No. 13 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R to its breakthrough victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. In previous years, he worked a variety of roles in just about every high-level North American championship, also including the NTT IndyCar Series.
He engineered Jordan Taylor during his early Grand-Am years at Autohaus Motorsports and worked several engineering roles as part of the Acura prototype program in ALMS, while a lengthy tenure at Pratt Miller saw him posted to WEC and the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Larbre Competition. Ping currently also serves as the strategist for Rebel Rock Racing in IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge.