JANUARY 7, 2003

Lola recruits new chief engineer

Lola Cars International Ltd has appointed Julian Cooper to be its new chief engineer. Cooper has been involved in the sport for the last 16 years beginning his career at Cosworth. He moved to Benetton where he worked with John Barnard and Ross Brawn and then joined Lola in 1993 where he spent three years, one of his jobs being to help to design the ill-fated Lola F1 car in 1997. Disenchanted with F1 he moved to America with Galmer before joining the British Touring Car Championship as chief engineer at Ray Mallock Ltd. In recent years he has worked on the Saleen sportscar project.

Cooper will oversee Lola's return to Formula 3 in 2003 with the car that is being built in conjunction with Japan's Dome Cars. He will also look after what Lola managing director Rupert Manwaring described as "new and exciting projects" for the Huntingdon racing car manufacturer.