More praise for Postlethwaite

Patrick Tambay, a Ferrari driver in 1982-83 when Postlethwaite was designer, said: 'I loved his car, his attitude, and his dry sense of humour. He was a straightforward, nice and outspoken character.'

Williams technical director Patrick Head, 'Harvey's contribution to motorsport engineering design has been varied and considerable. His humorous personality will be missed by many who worked with him.'

The 55-year-old suffered a heart attack while in Spain working with the prototype F1 car he had developed for Honda's projected Grand Prix return next season. His career at the top of F1 spanned nearly 30 years.

He became famous for his part in a number of innovative designs. These included the raised nose on the 1990 Tyrrell 019. It became the trademark of '90s F1 cars.

Postlethwaite worked for Tyrrell for much of the '90s, having spent his career with Hesketh, Wolf, Fittipaldi, Ferrari and Sauber. He achieved successes in each of the three decades in which he was part of F1.

In the '70s, he designed the 1975 Hesketh 308 in which James Hunt won his first Grand Prix, and then moved on to Wolf for the 1977 season. His WR1 won its first Grand Prix with Jody Scheckter at the wheel and was second in the World Championship.

In 1981, he moved to join Ferrari, dragging it into the modern age with British technology. He mated strong chassis to the team's powerful turbo engine and won Constructors' Championships in 1982 and '83.

He stayed at Ferrari until 1988, left to join Tyrrell, went back to Ferrari, briefly to Sauber and then back to Tyrrell where he was engineering director until the team was bought by British American Racing. In the past year, he had been working on building up Honda's works F1 team.

Jean Alesi, who worked with Postlethwaite at Tyrrell and Ferrari, said, 'The 1990 Tyrrell that Harvey designed with [aerodynamicist] Jean-Claude Migeot was my dream car and my favourite car. I laughed non-stop when I drove it. Whatever I did it reacted.'