Rob Smedley joins Williamsposted in F125 | 02 | 2014
ROB SMEDLEY, THE man with one of the most instantly recognisable accents in Formula One, has followed his former Ferrari driver, Felipe Massa, to Williams.
The Middlesbrough-born 40-year-old — who was Massa's race engineer at Maranello, and whose radio transmissions achieved cult status — has joined Williams in the newly-created role of head of vehicle performance. He was at Ferrari from 2004-2013.
Williams has stressed Smedley will not be Massa's race engineer at Williams: that duty falls to Andrew Murdoch. Instead Smedley's rolle will, according to the Grove-based team, "strengthen the trackside team whilst also supporting the development work back at the factory to help bring more performance to the car throughout the season".
This is an area identified by chief technical officer Pat Symonds, who took over last year, which he believes will be crucial to Williams recapturing its race performance.
Smedley will therefore act as the link between track and base works as effectively as possible.
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Williams has also confirmed that Richard Lockwood has joined from Marussia, where he worked as a tyre/strategy engineer. He has been appointed head of race strategy to work with incumbent strategist Randeep Singh.
These are the latest in a series of moves to push the team back up the grid following the recruitment of Rod Nelson to run the testing operation and Jakob Andreasen as head of engineering operations.
"Williams is undergoing change and these new appointments reflect how high our ambitions are," said Symonds.
"We have a number of senior people joining us to assist us in the pursuit of those ambitions and I am extremely excited to welcome them on-board.
"2014 gives us the biggest change to the technical regulations that I have seen in my career, and so it will be important to add further depth to the talent we already have here as we head into the new season.
"Williams has always prided itself on engineering excellence and this latest announcement is part of our continued goal to bring success back to the team."
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Jim McGill