Mike Coughlan
Mike Coughlan ( born February 17, 1959) is a British engineer and designer of racing cars in Formula 1
Coughlan studied at Brunel University in Uxbridge engineering. After graduating in 1981, he first worked as a designer for Tiga Cars, a company founded by former racers Tim Howden Ganley giving and Company, produced the race car for junior series.
In 1984 he moved to Lotus in Formula 1, working under Gérard Ducarouge the design team. Coughlan was involved in the development of the Lotus -Renault 97T, with Ayrton Senna in 1985 could retract his first win in Estoril. After Senna's move to McLaren in late 1987 also Ducarouge left the team. Dernie became the new technical director and chief designer Coughlan.
The end of 1990, after Lotus had lost the main sponsor Camel, Coughlan went to John Barnard's Advanced Research Group, the former development department of the Benetton team. Coughlan was chief designer in the development of the B191, which constituted the basis for the successful Benetton racing car in the early 1990s. However, Barnard left Benetton shortly after disputes with Flavio Briatore and the Advanced Research Group disbanded.
Coughlan went to Tyrrell and developed the 020B, with Andrea de Cesaris was able to retract in 1992 eight championship points. As Tyrrell's chief designer George Ryton end of 1992 left the team, Coughlan took over his post. His Tyrrell 020C, which was used in the first half of 1993, as the successor model 021 was unsuccessful. The end of 1993 Coughlan went to Ferrari and was head of R & D department of the Design and Development Design offices.
In 1997, with Barnard Coughlan to Arrows where he was chief designer in 1998 after Barnard's farewell center and in 1999 took over the post of Technical Director.
Coughlan 2002 accepted an offer as chief designer of McLaren. In 2007 he was in the wake of spy scandal between McLaren and Ferrari, in which he is accused of having received secret information of the Ferrari team from the Ferrari team coordinator Nigel Stepney, suspended.
After interludes with Stefan Grand Prix and Michael Waltrip Racing Couglan returned to Formula 1 in the summer of 2011. He took over the position of chief engineer at Williams. With the start of the 2012 season he was promoted to technical director and replaced in this role Sam Michael. Under Coughlan's line of Williams FW34 and FW35 created the. In July 2013 he was at Williams replaced by Pat Symonds.