Some good advice and stories, thanks for posting
Love your side hustle Cockerpunk, you've given me an idea for a new thread
wdfifteen, definitely not living the dream but enjoy my work which gets me up in the morning. As long as the week has more good days than bad and teams want my help I'll keep on doing 'my thing'
As a business/sales man I'm a complete amateur, still don't have a work email address, website, portfolio or have even approached companies for work
Recently been thinking with the experience and all round knowledge learned from over 30yrs of motorsport engineering/design I'm able to contribute much more to improving a teams performance than just designing a few fast car parts.
Next summer I might try to diversify a bit, a few rambling thoughts I've pondered on....
Maybe start approaching motorsport teams to see if there is any need for someone like myself to help develop their young engineers, find/identify areas of the car that could be improved, introduce new materials/manufacturing processes, cost saving opportunities etc
Basically go in more as a consultant to help raise the teams technical level beyond where they are to help improve their competitiveness
Not F1 teams specifically, been lucky to have achieved every championship result possible so nothing new to achieve now. Really liking the idea of top level racing series well out of my comfort zone like NASCAR, Le Mans Hypercar, Moto GP, Paris Dakar, Indy or even Class 1 offshore powerboats, America's Cup
Or finding suitable small composite manufacturing companies that are interested in supplying F1 teams in the new cost conscious era and help them get their foot in the door as a F1 supplier. Basically helping a company raise their game to a high enough level that a F1 team would find attractive enough to want to do business with them. This would be more of a side hustle
Interested to hear people thoughts and any advice gratefully received