MOTORSPORT: Aussie scores plum McLaren job

The Australian engineer seen to have copped the blame for the Williams team's worst year in Formula One is to join British rival McLaren in a key role.

Sam Michael, now a veteran of almost 20 years in F1, will become McLaren's sporting director, working with two world champion drivers – Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button.

It is a surprise appointment as Michael's star had been seen to have faded as the once-mighty Williams lost its competitiveness, slumping to ninth of 12 teams in the constructors' world championship this season with just five points.

McLaren is second to Red Bull Racing in the constructors' championship while 2009 world champion Button is third in the driver standings, behind Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, and Hamilton, the 2008 world champion, is fifth.

Australia's Mark Webber is equal on points with Button, but the British driver has had two wins this year and Webber none for Red Bull.

As McLaren's sporting director, Michael will head its trackside operations – a role that appears to be second only to that of team principal Martin Whitmarsh.

West Australian-born, Canberra and Sydney-educated Michael was expected to have stayed at Williams until after the Korean Grand Prix in mid-October but instead will leave Williams after the September 25 Singapore GP.

He will officially take up the McLaren role next year.

Michael has spent a decade at Williams, initially as chief operations engineer and since 2004 as technical director.

Earlier he worked for the Jordan team and, as a race engineer, was instrumental in it becoming a GP winner.

While Michael appears to have retained a good relationship with Sir Frank Williams, he has always worked at Williams in the shadow of Patrick Head, the man who created all the world title-winning Williams cars – including that of Australian world champion Alan Jones in 1980.

Head had progressively wound back his involvement at Williams over the past decade but remained a huge presence.

The team's day-to-day operations increasingly have been run by Adam Parr, with whom Michael's relationship looked to have been strained.
Michael said he was "extremely excited to be joining McLaren - one of the all-time greats of F1".

"I already know and respect many of the team's senior technical management figures, and becoming a member of that excellent working unit was one of the prime attractions of this new position," he said.

"Equally, for some time I've closely observed and greatly admired both Lewis and Jenson as grade-one drivers, and therefore regard it as an enormous privilege to be able to work with both of them.

"I've spent 11 seasons with Williams, have many fond memories, and truly wish them all the best.

"In the near future, however, I will become 100 per cent focused on Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, and will be aiming to ensure that the team's famous rocket-red victory T-shirts will be seen many times over the coming years."

Whitmarsh said Michael would bring "a very valuable blend of experience and expertise to our pitwall, and will also enrich the technical management we provide for our drivers".

Sir Frank Williams wished Michael well.

"I am delighted that Sam has found a new role that will enable him to continue to apply his energy, passion and experience to F1," he said.
"On behalf of everyone at Williams I wish him a successful move to his new team.

"I would also like to thank Sam for his help in enabling a swift and smooth transition to our new technical leadership. Mike Coughlan and Jason Somerville are settling in very well and the restructuring will be complete when Mark Gillan joins us as chief operations engineer on September 19."

Coughlan, ironically, was the McLaren engineer at the centre of the 2007 Spygate scandal in which McLaren was fined US$100 million for receiving detailed technical information from within Ferrari.