Williams Martini Racing has announced that Doug McKiernan has joined the team as their new Chief Engineer, and will report to Chief Technical Officer Paddy Lowe in his new role.
McKiernan has previous Formula 1 experience having worked for the McLaren F1 Team between 1999 and 2015, starting as Aerodynamic Analyst before moving on to Chief Aerodynamicist and Head of Aerodynamics, before concluding his time at Woking in the role of Chief Engineer.
“It is a pleasure to be joining Williams,” said McKiernan. “The team has exciting plans for the future, and it is great to see the work already being done with the aerodynamic and engineering teams to produce the FW41, whilst also looking ahead to future cars as Williams continues its charge to move further forwards on the grid.
“The team already has a strong engineering department, and I hope that I can further add to that to continue driving forward the development of the FW41 and future cars.”
Lowe is happy to be reunited with McKiernan after the duo worked together at McLaren between 2007 and 2012, and he says his appointment comes as the team look at increasing their resources in the aerodynamic department, something that was lacking ahead of his own arrival at Williams in 2017.
“Having worked with Doug closely between 2007 and 2012, I am sure that his talent and experience will significantly strengthen our team and we are delighted that he is joining us,” said Lowe.
“Since returning to Williams last year, it has become clear that in order help move the team forward we need greater engineering resources. We have already started to make excellent progress, with Dirk de Beer our Head of Aerodynamics leading an invigorated aerodynamics team.
“The addition of Doug to the senior team, supporting our Chief Designer Ed Wood and Dirk in particular, will give us the breadth for more focus on technical strategy, and the optimisation of car architecture across design and aerodynamics.”
