Gil de Ferran In As Sporting Director

It looks like those rumours were true after all. Gil de Ferran has been appointed as the new Sporting Director of the BAR team. Nick Fry has still be retained and will act as the Chief Executive Officer of the Brackley squad.

But its curious how Autosport managed to get the jump on anyone else. Pitpass revealed that Autosport had published the story earlier but immediately withdrew it from their website. This suggests that the story was premature and Autosport knew about this first. Of course, no surprises with that. In the list of publications covering Formula 1, Autosport and sister magazine F1 Racing get first call for nearly everything.

How do you define the role of the sporting director? I tried to look for a precise definition somewhere but just couldn't nail it down. I admit I wasn't looking for very long. Nevertheless, as sporting director, Gil de Ferran will fill the role as the team boss at the races. Much like Jean Todt assumes that role at Ferrari. He will involve himself with all non technical aspects of the team and according to Nick Fry, he is "to get the best out of the racing team, the race engineers and the race and test drivers by enhancing their teamwork and motivation, using his experience to help get the most from the car on-event and developing race-winning strategies."

As for Nick Fry apparently his role confines him to the factory. In his own words, he will focusing on "harnessing the power of our enhanced relationship with Honda and providing overall company leadership." OK then.