Peter Collins first joined Team Lotus in 1978, having emigrated from Australia at the beginning of that year to pursue a career in motor racing. His dedication was rewarded when he was offered the position of assistant competitions manager by Colin Chapman.
Peter soon progressed to Team Manager and persuaded Chapman to offer a testing opportunity to Nigel Mansell, at the time thought of as a racing driver of unknown talent. Thereafter he has developed an enviable reputation as a spotter of fresh talent and a man of vision and still maintains a close watch on the formulae leading to F1. Peter is one of the few in recent years to offer a Formula One seat to a driver graduating from British Formula Three, this enabling Mika Hakkinen to bypass Formula 3000, the usual route into Formula One.
Following a spell as Team Manager at Williams, Peter moved to fill a more responsible role setting up the new Benetton Team. In his second year Peter introduced Gerhard Berger to the front of the Grand Prix grids, giving Benetton their first Grand Prix victory with Gerhard at Mexico. He also gave Johnny Herbert his first Formula One contract while still recovering from injuries sustained during a Formula 3000 racing accident at Brands Hatch. At the time many felt Herbert's career was over, but Peter did not lose faith in Johnny's ability and confirmed his opinion by offering him a Formula One contract for 1988, whilst Herbert was still recovering from his accident.
In December 1990 Peter returned to Team Lotus as Managing Director, in partnership with Peter Wright. The team was at a low ebb at that time and Peter spent three years restructuring the team. Collins is now Managing Director of a professional organisation dedicated to seeing Team Lotus back on the podium and to fulfil the specific aim of restoring the team to its former glories.
Having completed an MA in Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge in 1967, Peter began working at BRM where he first appreciated the phenomena of ground effect before moving to the Lotus Group in 1974, and Team Lotus in 1977.
Peter's 20 year career with Lotus has encompassed various challenges, but it is his part in the successful application of the ground effect theory and active suspension to Grand Prix winning Lotuses that he is most famous for, including the ground effect Lotus Types 78 and 79. Peter spent seven years at Lotus Engineering, where - among many other projects - he continued his active suspension development programme. In 1987 he became Managing Director of Lotus Engineering and a member of the Group Lotus board.
In partnership with Peter Collins, Peter returned to Team Lotus in 1990 as Technical Director, sharing Collins' goal of restoring the team to its former glories.
Chris studied Mechanical Engineering before launching his motorsport career with the German Maurer F2 team in 1982 and 1983. He worked on Indycar and CanAm cars before moving into Formula One to design cars for Zakspeed (1987) and Lola (1989 and 1990). The success of his 1989 Lola design received a great deal of praise within the industry.
After a year as Leyton House Design Director Murphy joined Team Lotus in October 1991, and is responsible for the 107, 107B, 107C and 109.
Trevor began his Formula One career as a mechanic with Shadow at the end of 1973, before moving to Tyrrell in 1977. After a spell running works Marches in Formula Two, and then restoring Ferraris, he set up Pegasus Motorsport in 1982. He joined Eddie Jordan Racing in 1988 and had risen to a management and engineering role by 1991.
Entering his second year with Team Lotus, Trevor has complete responsibility for all aspects of the racing operation and the day to day running of the team, as a more formal company infrastructure is developed.