Multimatic announced the appointment of Pascal Zurlinden to the position of Director of Performance Engineering at Multimatic Special Vehicle Operations (MSVO). Zurlinden joins Multimatic from Porsche where he led the marque to many motorsport successes in recent years, the company says.

Zurlinden’s knowledge, expertise and experience will be an important asset to the organization, Multimatic says, as the Special Vehicle Operations group, specializing in high-performance vehicle development and runs Multimatic’s motorsport programs, continues to grow. Zurlinden will report to MSVO Executive Vice-President, Larry Holt.

“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,” said Holt. “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.”

Zurlinden was instrumental in the birth of Porsche’s and Audi’s development process of their LMDh race cars, for which Multimatic is the chosen “spine” (chassis) constructor partner. All of his knowledge in that area will therefore still be exclusively available to Porsche and Audi and so there should be no loss of momentum with the programs.

“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,” said Zurlinden.