Leclerc's ex-engineer becomes Cadillac technical director in WEC and IMSA

Xavier Marcos is the new technical director of Cadillac's LMDh sportscar programme after six years of working with Charles Leclerc in Formula 1

Charles Leclerc’s former race engineer at the Ferrari Formula 1 team has been recruited by Cadillac as technical director of its LMDh sportscar project. 

Xavier Marcos is taking up the new position within the Cadillac V-Series.R programme, which straddles the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship, after seven years at the Scuderia.

The Spaniard was a factory-based engineer in 2018 before becoming a race engineer when Leclerc joined Ferrari the following year.

Marcos remained in the position until May 2024 when he was replaced prior to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix by Bryan Bozzi and was moved onto what Ferrari described as “other important company programmes”. 

He joined Ferrari from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Cup team with which he had been chief race engineer, having previously worked in F1 for HRT and then Williams. 

The technical directorship is one of two new positions created at Cadillac Racing to support new LMDh programme manager Keely Bosn, who started the role on 1 January after being announced in October. 

The second new job is that of propulsion manager, with a focus on the 5.5-litre normally-aspirated V8 and the spec hybrid system that power the V-Series.R. 

This position has been taken by Sean O’Shea, who joined Cadillac’s parent company General Motors in 2015. 

He formerly worked for Bosch Motorsport, which supplies the motor generator unit of the LMDh hybrid system, on its involvement with Mazda’s diesel racing programmes in sportscars.

Bosn has taken over management of the V-Series.R campaigns from Laura Wontrop Klauser, who was GM’s sportscar programme manager covering both the LMDh and Corvette Racing GT3 programmes. 

That role has now been split, with Jessica Dane, daughter of Roland, the co-founder of the Triple Eight Engineering touring car team in the United Kingdom and Australia, taking over as manager of the Z06 GT3.R project.

Klauser and Christie Bagne, who worked under her on the Z06, have been transferred to production car roles within GM. The moves were described as a normal rotation or “churn” of management within the GM Racing entity.

In this article
Gary Watkins
WEC
Formula 1
IMSA
Cadillac Racing
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