Smedley looks forward to sea bream at Branca, Oxford. He is presently taking a break from F1 engineering after an 18-season stint
LYNDON McNEIL
TO A KID GROWING UP IN 1970S Middlesbrough, Formula 1 might as well have been a parallel universe. “I come from a working-class background and motor racing wasn’t the most obvious thing to follow,” Rob Smedley says. “My whole family was into football, massive Middlesbrough fans, but during the 1980s my dad started getting into F1. I’d noticed it in the background on TV, but thought it looked incredibly dull. And then in 1987, he asked whether I fancied going to the British Grand Prix. I said, ‘OK, so long as we take a transistor radio to listen to the football scores.’”
To hear how Smedley, 45, morphed from uninterested teen to one of the most prominent Formula 1 race engineers of his generation, we meet at Branca, Oxford, where he selects char-grilled sea bream with spinach and new potatoes. “It’s part of my bid to stay healthy,” he says, before pausing momentarily and adding, “Actually, I’ll have a half of lager, too…”