Multimatic has named Pascal Zurlinden as its new director of performance engineering at Multimatic Special Vehicle Operations (MSVO). Having previously held a position at Porsche, he will head up MSVO’s high performance vehicle development operations and run Multimatic’s motorsport programs, building on his experience leading the OEM’s motorsport arm.
Zurlinden said, “I am really looking forward to my new job and want to thank Larry and Multimatic for the trust they have placed in me. Of course, I’ve been following Multimatic in motorsport and outside this field for many years as competitor and/or partner, and it’s something special for me to play a leading role in continuing the company’s success story on and off the race tracks.”
An automotive engineer by background, Zurlinden was instrumental in the formation of Porsche and Audi’s development process for the LMDh race cars, for which Multimatic is the chassis construction partner. All of his knowledge in this area will therefore still be exclusively available to Porsche and Audi.
The 39 year-old Frenchman joined Porsche in 2014 in an engineering role to work on the company’s LMP1 regime. He then went on to take the reins of the factory GT program. Zurlinden took over responsibility for all of the brand’s factory racing from 2019 onward.
He reports directly to MSVO executive VP Larry Holt who added, “We have worked with, and competed against, Pascal over the years and he has proven to be an outstanding technical partner as well as a tough adversary when we ran the Ford GT head-to-head against the Porsche 911 RSR.
“He is a highly skilled motorsport engineer with an extremely strong intuitive feel for race craft and a great approach to leading a team when subjected to the high pressure of competition. We are extremely fortunate to be able to have him join the MSVO team. As partners with Porsche on a number of motorsports programs it can only enhance both companies to keep Pascal in the fold.”
