Former Porsche Factory Racing Boss Zurlinden Joins Multimatic

The former head of factory motorsport at Porsche, Pascal Zurlinden, has joined Multimatic as the company’s director of performance engineering.

Zurlinden, who unexpectedly departed Porsche in October last year, will start his new role at Multimatic’s Special Vehicle Operations division on March 1.

He will report directly to MSVO executive vice president Larry Holt.

Zurlinden’s appointment comes at a time when Multimatic and Porsche are working on the development of the German manufacturer’s LMDh prototype, which completed its first rollout test at Weissach last week.

The MSVO department in which Zurlinden will be based was established in 2020. Since then it has focused on niche vehicle development and motorsport projects.

“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,” said Holt.

“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.”

Before moving up to the rank of factory motorsport director, Zurlinden worked for Porsche as a lead engineer on the marque’s LMP1 program with the 919 Hybrid.

The 39-year-old Frenchman joined Porsche in 2014 after a period working with Audi Sport and was placed in charge of the factory 911 RSR GTE program in 2018.

“I am really looking forward to my new job and want to thank Larry and Multimatic for the trust they have placed in me,” said Zurlinden.

“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.”