Michael May (born 18 August 1934 in Stuttgart, Germany) is a former racing driver from Switzerland.
He participated in three Formula One World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 14 May 1961. He scored no championship points. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Michael May participated in three F1 World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 14 May 1961.
Before this, in 1956, this 22 year old Swiss engineer and amateur racing driver became a pioneer in the future of F1 racing. He saw the potential of using aerodynamics and experimented with an inverted wing mounted over the cockpit of his Porsche 550 Spyder which he raced on the European circuit. He and his brother saw the immediate benefits of the downward forces created to increase grip and cornering and with modifications including a lever system to adjust the tilt of the wing, created outstanding results.
The first race test was to be held at the Nürburgring 1000 Kilometres in May 1956 and despite cynicism by his fellow drivers, he passed the scrutineering and qualified forth fastest in practice, outpacing the likes of Fangio and Behra. When his car proved faster than the works Porsches, Porsche racing boss, Huschke von Hanstein lodged a protest for the wing to be banned, under the pretext that it was unsafe and obscured the vision of following drivers and threatened to pull all four cars from the race. The officials backed down and banned the modification. He raced the spyder with the wing in one other race, at Supercortemaggiore the following month, but did not finish, and he shelved the concept for the future.
In the 1960s he continued his engineering career working at Benz on his own patented FI system. He was approached by Porsche to get more power out of their F1 car/engine. After this, 1963-64 he was a consultant to Ferrari on its successful adoption of Bosch direct fuel injection for its racing engines. He also mentioned the function and the success of the wing he designed for his spyder to Mauro Forghieri. Forghieri and his team engineered, built and mounted an aerodynamically-sound wing on the 312 F1 Ferrari and tested it in 1968-the rest is history
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