© Williams

At the age of ten, Ed Wood started preparing motorbikes with his father, who was a member of the Royal Signals White Helmets. By the time he was 14, he was doing his own restoration work and running a dirt bike.

In 1986, at the age of 18, he became a mechanic in World Superbikes and MotoGP, before moving to TWR’s Jaguar Group C programme for 1990. In September of the same year, Wood went to Manchester University to study mechanical engineering and graduated with a first class honours degree three years later. Wood then went on to complete a doctorate in engineering science at Oxford University. In 1996 he worked concurrently at the university as a lecturer in thermodynamics and as senior engineer at Rolls Royce Technology Centre for Heat Transfer and Aerodynamics.

In late 1997 Wood landed his first job in F1, courtesy of Ferrari. He spent three years working for the Maranello-based squad as an R&D engineer and then two years at Renault as senior development engineer.

He then switched to the World Rally Championship, where he worked as chief designer on Prodrive’s programme with Subaru.

He stayed at Prodrive until March 2006, when he took on the position of chief designer for Williams.