In 2000, seeking a new challenge, Paul moved from McLaren to a Benetton team seeking to rebuild following a post-Michael Schumacher slump. Paul initially worked as a performance engineer but in mid-season took on the role of Race Engineer for Jenson Button. After Button moved on and the team was rechristened Renault, Monaghan began working with the team’s exciting new prospect Fernando Alonso. The partnership was quickly successful, with Alonso taking his first F1 victory at the 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Again looking to new horizons, Paul had a spell at Jordan Grand Prix before joining Red Bull Racing at the end of 2005. “You could tell straight away that there was a different philosophy within the team,” he says. “It was one of ‘right, we want to go and win this’, as opposed to just being in it and surviving. It was a breath of fresh air, a team that was clearly ambitious and serious – but with an element of fun to it.”
Paul’s original title was Head of Race and Test Engineering. Over time this has transitioned into the role of Chief Engineer, Car Engineering, a position that sees him responsible for extracting safe and maximum performance from the team’s machinery across a grand prix weekend, and turning racing concepts into real-world performance gains.
Paul can still be found at the centre of race team activity and while he is now part of Oracle Red Bull Racing’s senior technical management team, more often than not, he can be found in the garage or the race bays, deep in conversation with the team’s mechanics and trackside engineers as they work to extract maximum performance from car and driver every race weekend.
“We've got to put best foot forward in in all the areas to get the most out of it,” he says of running Oracle Red Bull Racing’s cars on Grand Prix weekend. “We have to run the as cleanly as we can and that's our best route to being competitive. And if our rivals make steps then we have to be prepared for that and we have develop as well. We can't ever stand still.”
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