Sam Michael's last race for Williams will be the Korean Grand Prix
By Jonathan Noble
Monday, July 25th 2011, 07:41 GMT
Williams technical director Sam Michael's last race with the team will be the Korean Grand Prix, before handing his responsibilities over to other people.
Michael resigned from the outfit earlier this year on the back of the team's poor start to the campaign, having felt the Grove-based operation would benefit from a restructuring of its technical operation.
With the outfit having signed new technical staff, including Mike Coughlan, Michael has now agreed the handover procedure before he leaves - with Korea being his final race.
"Most technical directors travel to races, but the structure that Williams is going for is not having a travelling technical director," explained Michael.
"There will be a chief operations engineer in Mark Gillan, so he is going to come to Japan and Korea, and be in the background to see how I operate for those two races. Then he will take over from there."
Michael remains contracted to Williams until March 1, and says he was not clear whether he would return to a factory role after Korea or be put on gardening leave.
"I definitely won't be at the races, but what is going to happen at the factory I don't know," he said.
Although Michael has been linked with roles at various teams, including Force India, Ferrari and Mercedes GP, he insists no final decision has been made on where he will move to.
"No," he said when asked if it was decided what his plans were. "It is still open."
Credit: AUTOSPORT.COM (www.autosport.com)
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