16/07/2013
NEWS STORY
Marussia and its Technical Consultant Pat Symonds have reached an agreement for the Englishman to "relinquish his responsibilities to the team" with immediate effect.
Symonds, who along with Flavio Briatore was banned from F1 in the wake of Crash-gate, began working for Marussia on a consultancy basis in the spring of 2011, the start of the team's second season of competition. This arrangement has continued since that time.
During the course of the past two and a half seasons, he has overseen the implementation of a technical team for the future, blending incumbent personnel with new team members from within the sport to create what is now a very robust technical structure with real strength in depth in all key areas.
With Symonds moving on to explore new opportunities, Marussia aims to announce its plans for the continued development of its growing technical operation in due course.
"For the Marussia F1 Team, each new season has seen a significant step change in terms of our growth and development at every level of the operation," said John Booth. "The extent to which we have progressed was particularly evident as we embarked on the 2013 season, when our performance demonstrated just how much we have matured from a technical point of view. We have some very talented design and engineering groups in place who have achieved great things over the past few seasons and who are excited about maintaining our current positive trajectory, boosted of course by our new powertrain partnership with Scuderia Ferrari. We would like to thank Pat for the contribution he has made to the development of that structure. We look forward to announcing plans for our continued growth when it is appropriate to do so."
"I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Marussia F1 Team over the course of the past two and a half seasons," added Symonds. "The Team has developed immeasurably during that time and it now has all the right people and resources in place to achieve great things in the future. I wish the Team the success it so richly deserves."