By Karl Ludvigsen, England
Atlas F1 Senior Writer

With tugs-of-war running over the services of Adrian Newey as well as Gustav Brunner, it's becoming quite clear that F1's pool of good designers is dwindling fast. Award winning writer Karl Ludvigsen looks down the pitlane in search for the next drawing board star

During the Canadian race, I started thinking about where the next great Formula One designers will come from. The big fuss is about Adrian Newey right now - and deservedly so - but Newey will be past his sell-by date soon. The next contract tranche, be it with McLaren or Jaguar, will see him through to the end of his front-line career as a technical director. And if I were Newey, by the way, I would see Jaguar as the organisation best able to offer me a great career post-racing. Jaguar is, after all, a pretty substantial car company and part of an even bigger one. That has to offer attractive options for the future, especially for a guy who already owns a classic Jaguar.

Newey's potential progress at McLaren is blocked by one of the great Grand Prix designers of the past, Gordon Murray. The man who designed the hugely creative yet practical Brabhams - some very successful - now heads road-car design for McLaren, where he is working on the exotic SLR two-seater. McLaren is part-owned by DaimlerChrysler, but I can't see them offering Newey a career path that could rival the opportunities that await him at Jaguar and its parent, Ford's Premier Automotive Group.

Of course, it could just be that DaimlerChrysler will buy Liz Morgan's shares in Ilmor and make a deal with Roger Penske that will integrate Ilmor with McLaren to create an even bigger high-performance entity that would give Newey fresh challenges and greater scope for his ability. You read it here first!

Another of the design greats now on the sidelines is John Barnard. John had two outstanding decades before withdrawing from the front lines to serve as a consultant, now for Prost. Patrick Head, of course, moved up from technical chief to team partner at Williams, in which role he oversees the team's engineering assets but is not involved in the nuts and bolts (do they still have those?) of race-car engineering. And, after his successes in other formulae, Adrian Reynard was expected to make a splash in Formula One, but it hasn't happened and seems unlikely to happen with BAR.

Some of Formula One's senior journeymen designers have worn out their welcome. I would put both Alan Jenkins and Gary Anderson in that category. Each has made his contributions, Jenkins notably at Arrows and Anderson at Jordan, but neither seems to have the qualities needed to cope with this era of aerodynamic obsessiveness. As Jaguar's Mark Handford said, today the aerodynamics come first and the car has to be designed to suit them.

Another journeyman seems to have dropped out of sight. The Argentine Sergio Rinland has had the most astonishing career, working for RAM, Williams, Brabham, Fondmetal, All American Racers, Forti, Benetton and at last report Sauber. Rinland is credited with the design of the 2001 Sauber C20, which is performing exceptionally well. But Rinland left the team before the season started, so Sauber is back where it was when it started in Formula One: having a fast car (designed then by Harvey Postlethwaite) but not knowing why it is so fast.

A couple of relative old-timers are still going strong. One is Steve Nichols, who moved into the Formula One front line in 1986 when he graduated from race engineer to designer of the McLaren MP4/3 of 1987 and then the hugely successful MP4/4. Nichols has been on the Ferrari, Sauber and Jordan strength as well. Now he is the senior technical man at Jaguar. The other is Gustav Brunner, who first stepped into the limelight in the early 1980s with his controversial drooping-pod Formula 2 design for Maurer. Another Ferrari time-server, Brunner won credit for his creative design work for struggling Minardi. He was snatched from them by Toyota, where he will find his work cut out for him.

Another who has a tough job ahead is Mike Gascoyne, technical chief at Benetton, soon to be Renault. Problems with the engine of the current Benetton are masking any contribution that Mike has been able to make, but he has a chance to shine when the wide-angle V-10 comes good, as I'm sure it will. Gascoyne could be one of the design stars of the future.

For now, though, my nominated future star designer is Gavin Fisher. An honors graduate in mechanical engineering, Fisher joined Williams Grand Prix Engineering in 1989 at the age of 25. He came aboard around the same time as a certain A. Newey, with whom he worked closely on some very successful cars. In 1997 Fisher was named chief designer for Williams.

If any one person can be credited with the excellence of the BMW-powered Williams that won so decisively in Montreal under Ralf Schumacher, it is Gavin Fisher. I have commented before on the sheer gorgeousness of this car, but it is not getting by on looks alone. Congratulations, Gavin, on one heck of a race car, and welcome to the top rank of Formula One's designers.