Xevi Pujolar has confirmed he has left the Scuderia Toro Rosso team, with rumours of his departure involving a possible argument between engineering staff and team boss Franz Tost during the Russian Grand Prix weekend.
Pujolar was the former race engineer of Red Bull Racing-bound Max Verstappen, and leaves the team after the fourth round of the 2016 season, with the moves part of a reshuffling of the engineering staff of the Faenza-based team.
The former Jaguar, HRT and Williams employee confirmed his departure with a tweet on his official Twitter account, and revealed he was proud of his work within the team.
https://twitter.com/xevipujolar/status/728314881762529280
Verstappen’s data engineer Olivier Helvig is also set to leave his position, but neither are following Verstappen to Red Bull Racing, with the Dutchman set to use the engineers previously used by Toro Rosso-bound Daniil Kvyat, with the eighteen-year-old set to have Gianpiero Lambiase as his race engineer.
Verstappen also took to Twitter to praise Pujolar for his work during their time together at Toro Rosso, in reply to his former engineer’s tweet.
https://twitter.com/Max33Verstappen/status/728325075510906884