NOVEMBER 26, 2003

McLaren lands a big fish

As we reported six weeks ago McLaren is to take on Ferrari's head of aerodynamics Nick Tombazis to strengthen its aerodynamic team at Woking. Tombazis will take on the role of being chief engineer (aerodynamic development) and will work alongside Peter Prodromou, who remains head of aerodynamics. Both men will report to technical director Adrian Newey. Tombazis will join McLaren in April next year.

McLaren gave the MP4-19 its first run yesterday in Valencia and the car proved to be much as expected, being closely-related to the abortive MP4-18, which was tested but never raced this year because of a string of problems with reliability and crash testing.

Tombazis is a highly experienced aerodynamicist and was involved at Benetton in the early 1990s before moving with Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Michael Schumacher to Ferrari.