Faustus wrote:I worked with Mike Coughlan a bit at Arrows and at the time I thought he was an intelligent guy and quite capable. My opinion of him changed drastically (for the worse) after he was stupid enough to be caught in that espionage nonsense of 2007. I think to an extent Enoch is right, he is not a big name nor is he likely to have that much of an immediate effect on the team. I would rather have seen Williams promote from within and to hire more people than just hire someone who happened to be available.
I suppose that you could say that Coughlan is a big name in the paddock, but for all the wrong reasons after the Spygate affair (which still leaves a slightly bitter after taste several years later). Intelligent though he may be, I can only guess that a combination of resentment at being passed over for promotion (much like Stepney), along with concerns about his future career, made him act in such an irrational way - which makes the whole affair even more tragic in a way.
I do agree, though, that Coughlan is unlikely to transform the fortunes of Williams rapidly - competent at the technical side of the sport he may be, but Williams need a drastic reversal in fortunes (both metaphorically and financially), and I'm not sure that Coughlan can do that. On top of that, Williams are going to need a new chief aerodynamicist - Jon Tomlinson will be leaving at the end of the year. That could be a much more difficult proposition - experienced aerodynamicists aren't exactly plentiful, and hiring a big name can be quite expensive.
Now, Williams have really struggled in terms of aerodynamics in recent years, with some cars being unconservative (the FW30, which was a revamped FW29), or flops when they tried something new (early season FW26), and the FW33, whilst interestingly packaged at the back (especially the low line gearbox), has been neither consistent or reliable. There do seem to be hints that the car has something up its sleeve - Rubens probably threw away a chance of points in Australia (he could have qualified in the top 10, so he wouldn't have had to risk charging through the field and crashing, as happened when he collided with Rosberg). Still, it looks like they can't truly unlock that performance on a regular basis - how often have we heard that said about a Williams car?
That said, there are few big names within the sport that are willing to join a team that has been mired in the midfield for a long time - in fact, there are few big names really on the market. We've seen Bob Bell switch from Renault to Mercedes earlier this month, and Pat Fry move from McLaren to Ferrari, seemingly preferring to stay within the manufacturers block instead of moving into the midfield (and who can blame them). Only Symonds has moved into a lower ranked team, joining Virgin Racing - and that is because his reputation, like Coughlan, has been so damaged that the bigger outfits won't open their doors to him.
