Williams has announced that former McLaren man Doug McKiernan has joined the team as its chief engineer ahead of the 2018 Formula 1 season.
McKiernan began his F1 career with McLaren in 1999 in the aerodynamics department where he held the role of chief aerodynamicist and then head of aerodynamics before taking up the role of chief engineer. He left McLaren in 2015.
McKiernan will report directly to chieft technical officer Paddy Lowe – a former colleague at McLaren for six years.
"Having worked with Doug closely between 2007 and 2012, I am sure that his talent and experience will significantly strengthen our team and we are delighted that he is joining us," commented Lowe.
"Since returning to Williams last year, it has become clear that in order help move the team forward we need greater engineering resources. We have already started to make excellent progress, with Dirk de Beer our head of aerodynamics leading an invigorated aerodynamics team.
"The addition of Doug to the senior team, supporting our chief designer Ed Wood and Dirk in particular, will give us the breadth for more focus on technical strategy, and the optimisation of car architecture across design and aerodynamics."
McKiernan added: "It is a pleasure to be joining Williams. The team has exciting plans for the future, and it is great to see the work already being done with the aerodynamic and engineering teams to produce the FW41, whilst also looking ahead to future cars as Williams continues its charge to move further forwards on the grid.
"The team already has a strong engineering department, and I hope that I can further add to that to continue driving forward the development of the FW41 and future cars."
