Michael May (born 18 August 1934 in Stuttgart,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

) is a former racing driver and engineer from Switzerland. He participated in three

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 14 May 1961. He scored no championship points. After a crash during practice for the

1961 German Grand Prix The 1961 German Grand Prix was the 23rd time the German Grand Prix (or Grosser Preis von Deutschland) motor race was held. The race also held the honorary designation of the 21st European Grand Prix. It was run to Formula One regulations as race 6 ...

, May concentrated on engineering, helping to develop a fuel injection system for Porsche and Ferrari. Carmel Tour d'Elegance (20370853379)

May is generally credited with introducing the first manipulated elevated wing onto a racing car - a

Porsche 550 Spyder The Porsche 550 is a racing sports car produced by Porsche from 1953 until 1956. In that time only 90 Porsche 550s were produced, and they quickly established dominance in the 1.1- and 1.5- liter classes. The Porsche 550 is a mid-engine car with ...

- to produce

downforce Downforce is a downwards lift force created by the aerodynamic features of a vehicle. If the vehicle is a car, the purpose of downforce is to allow the car to travel faster by increasing the vertical force on the tires, thus creating more grip ...

(or down thrust) for enhanced braking and cornering speeds to reduce lap times. The modified 550 was entered by May and his brother Pierre in the 1956 1000km of Nürburgring. During qualifying, the car lapped the circuit four seconds faster than the Porsche factory team 550s. However, race organizers disqualified the car following a complaint by Porsche racing director

Huschke von Hanstein Fritz Sittig Enno Werner von Hanstein (3 January 1911 – 5 March 1996) nicknamed "Huschke von Hanstein", was a German racing driver who from the 1950s served both as Porsche's public relations manager and chief of their racing department. ...

. The wing was removed for the remainder of the car's racing career. He also worked in designing high-compression engines, improving fuel economy among other things. The most notable example was his reworked 'Fireball' head for the 'high-efficiency' high-compression Jaguar V-12 HE engine.

Complete Formula One World Championship results

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Non-Championship

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Notes

# Sources disagree as to the spelling of May's first name
Forix
and ''The Guinness Complete Grand Prix Who's Who'' say "Michael", whereas

says "Michel" an

lists both. However
this source
offers evidence that it's "Michael".

References

1934 births Living people Swiss racing drivers Swiss Formula One drivers Ferrari people Swiss motorsport people {{F1-bio-stub