Williams deny receiving legal notice from Michael Waltrip Racing – Formula 1 news
Formula 1 team Williams have claimed that although a report has been filed by the NASCAR team Michael Waltrip Racing in the North Carolina district court against them and chief designer Mike Coughlan but no legal notice from the team has been received yet.
Williams’ spokesman stated that neither the team nor Coughlan has been in contact with the MWR team since June 2011.
Recently, MWR filed a lawsuit against the Williams team and their newly hired chief designer Mike Coughlan of a breach in contract that commits Coughlan to work for MWR until the 2012 season.
MWR claimed that Coughlan, the man behind the spygate controversy of McLaren and Ferrari in 2007, was in contract with them until 2012 but resigned from his post in 2011 to join the Williams team.
MWR also claimed that none of their drivers has been able to perform in the ongoing Sprint Cup Series for which Coughlan is responsible as he was in charge of design and production of the car.
In reply, Williams have now issued a statement which read as, “Williams F1 is aware of reports that a lawsuit has been filed by Michael Waltrip Racing against the team and Mike Coughlan. Neither Mike nor the team have received notice of any proceedings,
or indeed have had any contact with Michael Waltrip Racing since early June. Consequently we have no further comment to make on this matter.”
Mike’s inclusion in the Williams team was seen negatively as he was responsible for the espionage between McLaren and Ferrari team in the 2007 season after which he was banned from Formula 1 for three years.
Williams’ team took him onboard half way in the 2011 season but Coughlan’s involvement in the NASCAR was not known until MWR filed a lawsuit.
Coughlan now has a contract with the Williams team for a couple of years and it will be interesting to see how his team defends him from the MWR lawsuit.
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