Willy Rampf

William " Willy " Rampf ( born June 20, 1953 in Maria Thalheim ) is a German engineer.

Career

Willy Rampf studied at the University of Munich vehicle engineering and worked at BMW in Munich in 1979 as a development engineer. From 1989 to 1993 Willy Rampf worked for BMW in South Africa, where he came into contact also the first time with the Formula 1. Previously Rampf interested only for motorcycle sport.

1993 Peter Sauber gave in Kyalami with his own team Sauber 's Formula 1 debut. Willy Rampf was invited to this race. Six months later, Willy Rampf signed an agreement with Peter Sauber as a race engineer.

Willy Rampf spent three years in charge of the driver Heinz- Harald Frentzen and in the 1997 season for the drivers Nicola Larini, Norberto Fontana and Gianni Morbidelli as a race engineer. After four years in Formula 1, he returned to BMW.

In Munich, he headed the BMW motorcycle project for the Paris-Dakar Rally. Again Rampf was accomplished: The BMW driver Richard Sainct won the legendary desert rally. The end of 1999 Rampf began his second career with Sauber Petronas, where he took over the position as Technical Director on 1 April 2000 and is responsible for the definition of the vehicle concept, the design, development and vehicle use at the track recorded. Willy Rampf was technical director until April 2010; and was succeeded by James Key. Since August 2011, he held the position of Technical Director at Volkswagen Motorsport, where he is primarily responsible for the development of future WRC cars.