Mike Coughlan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mike Coughlan (born February 17, 1959)[1] is a race car designer. He was Chief Designer for the McLaren Formula One team from 2002 to 2007, when he was suspended for his part in the spy scandal between McLaren and Ferrari before his contract was subsequently terminated, although for legal reasons, McLaren cannot confirm the exact date when his services were terminated.[1]
Coughlan was born in the United Kingdom, and studied Mechanical Engineering at Brunel University, graduating in 1981. He first designed cars for Tiga Race Cars, which competed in junior formulae, until 1984, when he joined the Lotus Formula One team. As the team's fortunes waned, it was reorganised at the end of 1990, and Coughlan joined John Barnard's design company as it switched between producing chassis for Benetton, Ferrari and Arrows. Barnard parted company with Arrows after falling out with Tom Walkinshaw during the 1998 season, but Coughlan stayed on, taking the role of Technical Director in the following year. When Arrows collapsed in 2002, he was invited to join McLaren.
His A23 car, developed in 2002 for Arrows before the team folded, became the Super Aguri team's SA05 racecar four years later.[2]
[edit] Ferrari espionage case
On 3 July 2007, Coughlan was suspended by McLaren following allegations of espionage against Ferrari.[3] A Scuderia Ferrari press release said:
| “ | Ferrari announces it has recently presented a case against Nigel Stepney and an engineer from the Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes team [named by Autosport.com as Coughlan] with the Modena Tribunal, concerning the theft of technical information. Furthermore, legal action has been instigated in England and a search warrant has been issued concerning the engineer. This produced a positive outcome.[4] | ” |
The search warrant is understood to have related to Coughlan's home and the "positive outcome" is reported to be documents claimed to have originated at Ferrari's Maranello factory.[5] Stepney's dismissal from Ferrari had been announced earlier the same day.[6] On 6 July Honda F1 released a statement confirming that Stepney and Coughlan approached the team regarding "job opportunities" in June 2007.[7] Since the revelation of Coughlan's involvement in the affair McLaren provided a full set of drawings and development documents to the FIA, detailing all updates made to the team's chassis since the incident occurred at the end of April.[7]
[edit] References
- ^ Vodafone McLaren Mercedes - Technical Team Biographies
- ^ Minardi confirm back-to-back Arrows test. F1Racing.net, now GPUpdate.net (2003-07-23). Retrieved on 2007-06-30.
- ^ Noble, Jonathan; Goren, Biranit. "McLaren suspect is Mike Coughlan", www.autosport.com, Haymarket, 2007-07-03. Retrieved on 2007-07-03.
- ^ Noble, Jonathan; Goren, Biranit. "Ferrari confirm action against McLaren man", www.autosport.com, Haymarket, 2007-07-03. Retrieved on 2007-07-03.
- ^ 'Police raid found Ferrari documents at McLaren designer's home'. www.planet-f1.com. Planet F1 (2007-07-04). Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ "Ferrari dismisses Nigel Stepney", www.itv-f1.com, ITV Network, 2007-07-03. Retrieved on 2007-07-03.
- ^ a b "Honda was approached by spy suspects", www.itv-f1.com, ITV Network, 2007-07-06. Retrieved on 2007-07-06.
