Sam Michael to join McLaren as sporting director

[CNR]

Formula 1

Sam Michael will join McLaren as sporting director from 2012 onwards, it was announced on Tuesday. Michael resigned from his current post as Williams’ technical director in May and his last race with the British team will be the forthcoming Singapore event later this month.

[I am evil Homer]

Interesting..he came to F1 and built a decent rep but I sense he had pretty much zero support/average people behind the scenes to work with at Williams. McLaren will be a very different experience

[Mark]

In comparison to McLaren, Williams now seems like quite an old fashioned operation.

[wedge]

That came out of the blue.

Some people would point squarely at Michaels for Willams' demise/doldrums. At least he's not the day-to-day stuff so it seems Michaels' strength is managing a race weekend.

[DexDexter]

That came out of the blue.

Some people would point squarely at Michaels for Willams' demise/doldrums. At least he's not the day-to-day stuff so it seems Michaels' strength is managing a race weekend.

Maybe losing manufacturer-backing, resulting in a lack of budget and not-so-good drivers has a bit more to do with that.

[Malbec]

Some people would point squarely at Michaels for Willams' demise/doldrums .

Not me. It looks like he was highly rated around the paddock and thats born out by the fact that he was snapped up pretty quickly by McLaren. If he was thought by those in the know to be responsible for Williams' decline he would be unemployed like the Jaguar duo, Pitchforth and Purnell.

[jens]

I assume the exact role at Williams didn't suit him too well and that's why he was struggling and failed to show his best qualities. The role of a technical director was perhaps too much for him. But Sam could be really good in a smaller role, so we will see. For instance was it him, who was Frentzen's race engineer in 1999?

[steveaki13]

That came out of the blue.

Some people would point squarely at Michaels for Willams' demise/doldrums. At least he's not the day-to-day stuff so it seems Michaels' strength is managing a race weekend.

He joined in 2001 when Williams won 4 races after 3 years of nothing much happening at Williams, then 2002, 2003 and 2004 they were a front running team.

Only in 2005 did the real decline start.

[wedge]

He joined in 2001 when Williams won 4 races after 3 years of nothing much happening at Williams, then 2002, 2003 and 2004 they were a front running team.

Only in 2005 did the real decline start.

He started off as Senior Operations Engineer (similar to Sporting Director) then became TD in 2004 when Patrick Head demoted himself to concentrate on the factory side of things.

To the casual observer Sam's record at handling a midfield team doesn't look particularly good.

[Mia 01]

Casual being the operative word there. As I said on another forum people were laughing and saying the same thing and Andy Latham who I'm sure we all know painted a very different picture of the perception within the paddock. Put it this way, McLaren were keen to get him onboard.

Is it so, yes I think I remember that post of yours.

I don´t trust Sam since that time he was involved in a public fight with his paddock members, the fists was hanging in the air.