JANUARY 12, 2001

Robinson called to BAR

JAMES ROBINSON, the former senior operations engineer at Williams, is understood to have joined British American Racing in a senior engineering role.

JAMES ROBINSON, the former senior operations engineer at Williams, is understood to have joined British American Racing in a senior engineering role. Robinson left Williams in the middle of the summer. Robinson was in charge of all race engineering at Williams and also acted as the liaison between the race team and the design staff. His role will be taken in 2001 by former Jordan engineer Sam Michael.

Robinson has been talking to a number of teams in recent months about possible employment but it seems that he has joined BAR as part of the strengthening of the technical team which may be in preparation for the end of the current deal with Reynard staff. That deal runs out at the end of the 2001 season and BAR may then put in place its own design engineers. Robinson is well placed for a major role in the team if that happens. The power within BAR is clearly switching more and more towards Craig Pollock and his supporters with Reynard influence continuing to wane as his company tries to get itself out of financial problems.

Robinson worked with Jacques Villeneuve when the Canadian was at Williams and so is well-known to Jacques and to Pollock.