MAY 12, 1997

Scalabroni to head Williams sportscar program

WILLIAMS is tipped to be negotiating to hire Argentine designer Enrique Scalabroni to head the team's yet-to-be-announced sportscar operation with BMW.

WILLIAMS is tipped to be negotiating to hire Argentine designer Enrique Scalabroni to head the team's yet-to-be-announced sportscar operation with BMW. Scalabroni worked as Patrick Head's number two at Williams in the mid-1980s but was poached by Ferrari at the end of 1988 to be its technical director. He left in mid 1990 and in December that year was named chief designer of Team Lotus. He stayed just a few months before joining the abortive Il Barone Rampante F1 team. When that failed early in 1992 he joined Peugeot Sport and worked on the 905 sportscar project for a year. Since the start of 1994 he has been involved in another abortive F1 program, Ikuzawa International.

Despite the setbacks in his career since Ferrari, Patrick Head has always retained confidence in Scalabroni's talents as an engineer and he is a logical choice to lead the Williams sportscar technical team.