Coughlan promoted to Williams tech director

Williams has promoted the former ’spygate’ engineer Mike Coughlan.

The former McLaren chief designer was sacked and also banned after receiving secret Ferrari information in 2007.

He went to NASCAR but in June returned to F1 with the famous British team Williams, whose technical director Sam Michael has just departed.

Coughlan initially joined as chief engineer.

"We have just confirmed (Coughlan) as our new technical director," team chairman Adam Parr told reporters in India.

Mark Gillan joined Williams last month as chief operations engineer.

"In terms of how they are going I think it has been a very positive step for us," added Parr.

Williams is the lowest-placed team in the 2011 constructors’ championship except for newcomers Lotus, Virgin and HRT.

"There are some areas where we need to invest a little bit and we are doing that as fast as we can to really try and take a big step forward for next year," said Parr.