WHO GOES THERE? - 2012

This is a dossier of the latest news regarding who is working for or with whom in the motor-sport and performance engineering sectors, and other information about people within the sport and in the industry that surrounds it. Action Resources Ltd. is itself a noted recruitment and executive search organisation dedicated to this sector and, of course, offers driver management services as well:

 

April 2012

It is being suggested that the Austrian Chairman of the multi-national Swiss-based Nestle Group, Peter Brabeck (67), is likely to be named as the Chairman of the Formula One Group once the mooted IPO on the Singapore Stock Exchange takes place this coming July.   Brabeck serves as a Board Member of Credit Suisse, L'Oreal and ExxonMobil; he is also already on the Board of the F1 holding company, Delta Topco.   It is thought that Brabeck will be appointed ahead of Britain's Martin Sorrell, Chairman of global advertising agency, WPP, who is a fellow Delta Topco director.

Ex-F1 driver and Le Mans winner (with Porsche), Hans-Joachim Stuck, has been elected President of the DMSB (Deutsche Motor Sport Bund), Germany's motor-sport governing body.

Ben Agathangelou has joined Scuderia Ferrari in order to focus on liaison between the Team's Maranello base in Italy and the Toyota wind-tunnel, which Ferrari regularly uses, in Germany.

Naoki Tokunaga is leaving the Lotus F1 Team to join Renault Sport F1 as Deputy Technical Director of the next generation Renault F1 power-unit.  An ex-Nissan man, Tokunaga joined the Enstone-based operation in 2000.

38-year old Toni Cuquerella has been promoted to Technical Director within the HRT F1 operation.

Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, the son of Ferry Porsche and grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, has died at the age of 76.  He was known chiefly for his work on the 911 series, launched in 1963, and as the lead engineer on the 1.5-litre F1 Porsche 804 machine piloted by Dan Gurney to victory in the 1962 French GP at Rouen.  He also founded the Porsche Design company.

Bentley's new Sales Manager is Kevin Rose who once ran Audi and SEAT in the UK and who returns now from China.  Rose replaces Alasdair Stewart who has moved on to become the boss of Skoda UK.

Jaime Alguersuari and Lucas di Grassi have been confirmed as the two Pirelli test drivers for 2012.

Ford's Head of Global Performance Vehicles & Motorsport Business Development, Jost Capito, is to take over the management of Volkswagen Motorsport on 1 May 2012.  53-year old Capito's predecessor, Kris Nissen, has been in the post since 2003 and will stay on as an Adviser.

Ted Cutting - the designer of the 1959 World Sportscar Championship winning Aston Martin DBR1 - has died at the age of 84.

 

March 2012

Adam Parr is relinquishing his post as Chairman of Williams F1 on 31 March and will be replaced by Nick Rose, the former CEO of drinks group (and current McLaren sponsor) Diageo.

With great sadness, we have learnt of the death (in his mid-seventies) of Alan Mann on 21 March.  The motor-sport and helicopter leasing entrepreneur worked closely with the Ford Motor Company in the late '70s and early '80s and the scarlet and gold Alan Mann Racing Escorts, Galaxies, Cobras and F3Ls lit up the racing world in that era. The family tradition is being carried on in historic racing by Alan's son, Henry.

The Lola Group has announced that Jean Marchioni is the new International MD of Lola Cars and that John Gobbi has been confirmed as the MD of Lola Composites.

Writer and journalist, Joe Saward, has been appointed a non-executive director of Caterham Cars Group Ltd. (but he is not involved in the Caterham F1 team).

Cranfield graduate, Gerry Hughes, has joined Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing to work with Takuma Sato in IndyCar.  Hughes has worked with Bobby Rahal before - at Jaguar Racing - and with Sato too, when he was Chief Engineer at Super Aguri F1 in 2005.  

The 21-year old ex-Toro Rosso F1 driver from Spain, Jaime Alguersuari, is to join BBC Radio 5 Live! to commentate on Grands Prix alongside James Allen.

Rubens Barrichello - who drove in 322 GPs between 1993 and 2011 - is joining his friend and fellow Brazilian, Tony Kanaan, and EJ Viso in Kevin Kalkhoven's and Jimmy Vasser's KV Racing Technology Team in IndyCar this year.  The trio will race Chevvy-powered Dallaras and Barrichello will enjoy the backing of Brasil Maquinas de Construcao (BMC) - manufacturers of heavy construction equipment and specialist vehicles - and Embrase, a security and facility services company.

David Campbell has left his role as CEO of Allsport Management (which he joined at the end of 2010).

Nick Shorrock is retiring as Competition Director of Michelin, to be replaced by Pascal Couasnon.

February 2012

Rob Collard, Nick Foster and Tom Onslow-Cole will comprise WSR's BMW challenge in the 2012 BTCC, backed by eBay Motors.

19-year old Kevin Magnussen is to be 'promoted' within the McLaren Driver Development Programme and will henceforth share F1 simulator work with Gary Paffett and Oliver Turvey (the latter will also assist with McLaren's GT programme this year alongside Rob Bell and Alvaro Parente).  As part of his new deal, Magnussen will drive at the year-end F1 Young Driver test at Abu Dhabi in November.  Meanwhile, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes has also announced that British-born teenager, Tom Blomquist, son of 1984 World Rally Champion Stig Blomquist, has been picked to join its Driver Development Programme.  In 2010, Blomquist (now 18) was the youngest driver ever to win the Formula Renault UK Championship, going on to demonstrate race-winning form with Performance Racing in the 2011 Formula 3 Cup.

Veteran racing man, Tony Dowe, has been appointed Performance Director of Kelly Racing, which will run Nissans in the Australian V8 Supercar Championship.  Dowe ran Tom Walkinshaw's operations in the USA (TWR Inc.) and was a Panoz executive, amongst many other involvements in the sport since the late 1960s.

Russia's Vitaly Petrov has replaced the veteran Italian driver, Jarno Trulli, at the Caterham F1 Team.  Petrov brings funding from petrochemical company, Sibur, and from AvtoVAZ, the company that builds Lada cars in which Renault has a 25% stake.  Lada is soon to begin manufacturing Renault and Nissan-derived vehicles at its Togliatti factory in Russia.  Meanwhile, Mike Gascoyne has been promoted to the position of Chief Technical Officer for the whole of the Caterham Group, leaving Mark Smith in charge of all technical operations within the Caterham F1 Team.

Michael Wentworth is the new Licensing Manager at the MSA, the UK's governing body for motor-sport.  Wentworth has served as the deputy for the past year and joined the Licensing Department in 2006.

Autosport's race-car design guru and highly experienced designer and technical analyst, Gary Anderson, is to join the BBC's F1 commentary team.

Beaux Barfield is IndyCar's new Race Director.  Paul Walter is to take over from Barfield as the Race Director of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS).

Gianpiero Moretti - the Founder of the Momo steering-wheel empire and the main influence upon Ferrari in bringing about the 333SP sports prototype - has died at the age of 71.  This writer has a vivid memory of Moretti piloting a 512 Ferrari at Thruxton in around 1971.

Yves Matton has replaced Olivier Quesnel as Team Principal of the Citroen WRC Team.  Xavier Mestelan Pinion has been appointed Matton's deputy principal and Technical Director.

39-year old Toby Moody has been named as ITV Sport's new BTCC race commentator, to take over from Ben Edwards who moves over to the BBC to cover Formula One.  Moody comes from Worcester and competes at his local Shelsley Walsh speed hill-climb.  ITV Sport has also confirmed that Tim Harvey, Steve Rider and Louise Goodman will continue to be part of their BTCC team.

James Key has resigned from his role as Technical Director with the Sauber F1 Team in order to take on a new appointment back in the UK.

Adrian Sutil's F1 career looks as though it might be over, or at least on hold, after the German driver was handed an 18-month suspended jail sentence for grievous bodily harm to Eric Lux, the co-owner of the Lotus F1 Team (formerly Lotus Renault).  Lux and Sutil were out celebrating with Lewis Hamilton following the McLaren driver's victory in the 2011 Chinese GP in Shanghai.

David Brabham, Karun Chandhok and Peter Dumbreck are to drive the JRM Team's HPD ARX-03a LMP1 Prototype in the World Endurance Championship.  Brabham is also to contest the 2012 Blancpain Endurance Series with the United Autosports team, driving a McLaren MP4-12C GT3 alongside Alvaro Parente and Matt Bell (younger brother of global GT star and former LMS GT2 Champion, Rob Bell).

Jean-Michel Jalinier is to replace Bernard Rey as President of Renault's Formula 1 division.  Jalinier will report directly to the Chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, Carlos Ghosn.

Williams has announced the appointment of two new Directors to its Board.  Nick Rose joins Toto Wolff, Mike O'Driscoll and Eddie Charlton as the group's fourth non-executive Director, while Louise Evans has stepped up from her former position as Head of Finance to become Finance Director.

Having announced that Jacky Eeckelaert is to head up the design team on the 2012 HRT F1 car, the Belgian is now to leave the Team and HRT's Chief Designer will now be Jean-Claude Martens.  Martens will work alongside aerodynamicist, Stephane Schosse, on the Spanish team's 2012 challenger.

Steve Clark has been appointed Chief Track Engineer at Scuderia Ferrari F1.

Damon Hill is joining Sky for its 2012 F1 coverage.  Hill will appear at the Australian, Bahrain, Monaco, British, German, Hungarian, Belgian, Indian, USA and Brazilian Grands Prix.  Sky's HD F1 Channel launches on 9 March.

Riad Asmat has been appointed CEO of Tony Fernandes's three motor-sport operations - Caterham F1, Caterham Cars and Caterham Team AirAsia.

Kimi Raikkonen has had his first drive in an F1 car since the end of 2009.  The 2007 World Champion tested a 2-year old Renault R30 at Valencia prior to his full-time return to Grand Prix racing this year with the Lotus F1 Team.

Jack Harvey, Josh Hill, Alex Lynn, Oliver Rowland, Josh Webster, Lewis WIlliamson and Nick Yelloly have all joined the MIA's elite Team UK squad for 2012.

New UK Porsche Carrera Cup Scholar, Daniel Lloyd, has signed with Team Parker Racing.

Luis Perez-Sala is the new boss of HRT F1, replacing Colin Kolles.