BEYOND THE GRID: Jody Egginton on his journey from teacher to tech chief with AlphaTauri

Before he started “playing with racing cars”, as he puts it on this week’s episode of F1’s Beyond The Grid podcast, Jody Egginton trained as a schoolteacher. His love of motorsport led him to Formula 1, and he worked his way up from Tyrrell during the early years of computer-aided design (CAD) to Technical Director at AlphaTauri today.

Along the way he helped Force India achieve a stunning result in 2009, fought to keep the brand-new Caterham team afloat in the 2010s and worked with Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz at the very start of their F1 careers.

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He’s now driving AlphaTauri’s car development, pushing a team of engineers flat-out to give Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda a car which can challenge for the team’s long-held goal of fifth in the F1 constructors’ championship.

Egginton tells host Tom Clarkson about his approach to learning, communication, problem-solving and leadership, and shares advice for aspiring F1 engineers.

It’s all in this week’s episode. Simply tune in via the player above, or click here to listen on your preferred podcasting platform.

And to listen to the stories of some of the drivers Egginton has worked alongside, click here to explore the full back catalogue of Beyond The Grid, featuring episodes with the likes of Gasly, Tsunoda, Sainz, Jean-Eric Vergne and Mika Salo.