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Lothar...
Thanks for that but delve a little deeper...
From the Vodafone Mercedes McLaren website today....
Mike Coughlan
Chief Designer, McLaren Racing
Mike Coughlan, born 17th February 1959, gained a degree in mechanical engineering from Brunel University in 1981. Mike’s first position within motorsport was with racing car manufacturers, Tiga. After five years he moved to Lotus, with the Type 95 being the first car Mike was involved in. In 1990 Mike joined the Benetton Formula One team where he......
...In August 2002, Mike joined McLaren Racing as Chief Designer,...
The title Chief Designer is precisely that. He will set the basic design parameters and goals to achieve. He will effectively challenge his Engineering team to achieve those goals. He will not tell them how to do it down to the last detail. That is the role of:-
Tim Goss
Chief Engineer MP4-23, McLaren Racing
....Tim's current role is Chief Engineer MP4-23 following on from his role these past two years as Chief Engineer MP4-21. He will now take on responsibility for the specification and development of the 2008 race car.
You are correct that Pat Fry and Tim Goss take the lead on alternate years cars..so that they can concentrate on one design not two.
The person who does sign off cars and components for production is Neil Oatley:-
Neil Oatley
Design and Development Director, McLaren Racing
Neil Oatley graduated with an automotive engineering degree
......In 1988 Neil was promoted to Chief Designer, in charge of the design group for the following years’ challenger, the MP4/5. Neil's current role as Design and Development Director has him overseeing the car specification and design programme, defining the specification for each race and supervising the build and approval processes for each new component.
The relationship of the Chief Designer to Chief Engineer is a great playground. One sets the targets, the other works out how to get there.
So to say that the Chief Designer has no influence is to misunderstand the interaction between the two.
MC is a car designer first and foremost. He knows how to do Tim Goss's job. What he has done is set targets for Tim to achieve. How exactly that is done is for Tim and his team of engineers to work out in detail. MC could do it but its not his job.
A little for instance. The 'Architect' responsible for the McLaren Technology Centre is Lord Norman Foster. He is the name most attributed to the project. Yet he did not design everything there. He set the basic design vision with RD and they then challenged his team to deliver it.
His studio designed it... with a Partner of the Practice called David Nelson in overall guidance of the project. His role is analogous to MC's role. DN was responsible for taking that vision, understanding it, expanding and refining it into a building, both in functional and aesthetic terms, of influencing the vision as his team worked thro the details, of adding his own experience and skill to the project and crafting the design. He had a Project Director working on it who was responsible day to day for the project, both in leading the design team, managing the team and in pushing forward the design. This person was the 'Tim Goss' of the team. In addition this Project Director had other Project Directors responsible for different aspects of the project.
Yet the overall vision was set by NF and developed by DN...with others responsible for the detail. If however you ask 'who designed' it then NF's name is mentionned or within the industry, DN's name as it is known that he was responsible for the design on a week by week basis. NF set the vision, with RD and they let the team run with it, with reviews being held regularly to make sure the vision was being respected of it there was reason to evolve that vision to take into account new ideas.
A similar model is applicable to the design of the car. RD wants a car to win. So his Directors set about delivering that vision. Each focuses on their areas of responsibility, from the running of the team and support to the design of the car itself. MC has responsibility for the car design. Not every idea within it is his, yet the overall responsiblity lies with him, hence his title.
So whilst the transcript serves it own purpose, as does the hearing itself, we can also look to the actual process of how the car is designed to give us a clearer picture of the relative roles and influences of individuals within the design team.
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