JUNE 21, 2002

Bowlby on the move

BEN BOWLBY, the chief designer of the Lola CART program, is on the move and it looks likely that Bowlby could end up in Formula 1 as Lola has no competition in CART. The other option would be to move to IRL to join either the new MK Racing in Charlotte, North Carolina, or Don Panoz's G Force operation, which has been rumored to be looking for a new chief designer and recently had talks with former Prost Grand Prix chief designer Jean-Paul Gousset.

The possible F1 opportunities are mostly in the midfield and could include Toyota, Jaguar Racing, Jordan Grand Prix and Arrows. An announcement is expected shortly to throw some light on the mystery.

It is worth noting that, according to the Arrows team, Mike Coughlan lost his recent High Court action to establish whether or not he can leave Arrows to join McLaren. The court apparently upheld Arrows's contract but this does not mean much in that it is pointless for Arrows to try to make Coughlan work if he does not want to. The procedure now will be that a settlement will be found and then Coughlan will have to sit out a period of sixth months of what is called "gardening leave" - which he has already begun.

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