His racing work first started in BTCC British RV race, when he worked as a suspension designer at Peugeot. Then he transferred to Williams, and became a racing engineer in fernando alonso after being promoted to the F3000. In 200 1 year, Smedley entered the top racing competition-Formula F1,and worked as a data acquisition engineer for Jordan Team. He needs to collect and sort out all the telemetry data and provide it to racing engineers to help them understand the racing situation. 200 1, this work is still very practical. At that time, engineers were committed to the innovation of racing control system (such as traction control system and starting system), and Smedley also liked this work very much.
In 2002 and 2003, he became a racing engineer of Jordan Team, in charge of the race between frentzen and Fisichella. At the end of 2003, he joined Ferrari and worked in the testing team. I choose to work for Ferrari's test team because Smedley thinks that more technical information can be obtained in this way, and often more data can be obtained than in the race. In 2006, due to the unhappy cooperation between felipe massa and technician Deli Kerry, the team appointed Smedley, the engineer of the test team, as the race engineer in Brazil. Shortly after becoming Massa's technician, Massa won the first sub-station championship in Turkey.
Becoming a race engineer as a regular driver is a greater psychological workload for Smedley. On the weekend of the race, there is no time to improve the car itself, so engineers need to find the best balance point and make the right decision throughout the weekend.
Smedley believes that as a race engineer, he should not only make the car in an ideal state technically, but also calmly handle the situation in the race and remind his drivers in time.
Felipe massa, the driver in charge, expressed their tacit understanding and happiness in cooperation more than once. He once wrote in his blog: "... no matter how much it costs, I won't change my engineer Rob!"
Here are a few anecdotes. After Massa won the Spanish Grand Prix in 2007, Smedley, as his engineer, couldn't help laughing. He nicknamed his driver "Sunshine" in the team radio broadcast after the race, and was later intercepted by Ferrari fans as MP3 as a ringtone!
In the 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix, Smedley called Massa "Felipe Baby" on the radio, which became a classic memory of Ferrari fans. Some people even wrote a song called "Felipe Baby" based on this to tease the couple.
In the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, when Massa lost the annual championship by one point at the last moment, we saw Smedley, who had always been calm, hiding his face and crying on the podium. This United friendship is the support of the tacit cooperation between Smedley and Massa.
Even those harsh critics unanimously affirmed that Smedley's help to Massa was enormous. Mark hughes, a famous columnist of Motor Sport magazine, once pointed out directly when commenting on Massa that it would be difficult for Massa to reach such a height today without Smedley. British TV station ITV often regards Massa and Smedley as models of cooperation between drivers and technicians.
Now it can be said that Smedley has a high popularity among the team and Ferrari fans.