Frenchman Loic Bigois has replaced Antonia Terzi as Chief Aerodynamicist at WilliamsF1, following the Italian's resignation from the team.

Although no reason has been given for Terzi's recognition, her work on the radical 'hammer-head' nose, dropped by the Grove outfit, late in the season, did her no favours.

Born in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, Bigois' began his career in the French aviation industry in Toulouse as an employee of Microturbo Groupe Snecma.

The French aviation industry was a fertile recruiting ground for Formula One, and in 1990, Loïc was headhunted by the Ligier Team on a broad brief to assist not only with hands-on experimental tunnel testing at Magny-Cours, but also to take responsibility for surface designs. He was instrumental in introducing 5 axis machining for moulds into the process of accurately moving designs from CAD to the real world.

In 1994, when Ligier moved under the direction of Flavio Briatore, Loïc moved from his native France to take up a similar role at Sauber, and again was instrumental in introducing new technologies and working practices to the fledgling team. The stay was short lived, however, and Bigois was tempted back to Ligier after restructuring, and took up the post of Head of Aerodynamics. Besides the traditional responsibilities for experimentation at the Magny-Cours & Farnborough wind tunnels, Loïc also undertook brief stints as a track engineer and ultimately held responsibility for the entire operation of the test team.

By 1997, Ligier had become Prost Grand Prix, and Loïc spent three years leading the aerodynamics department and applying his skill and enthusiasm to lead the design of the team's first race car, while heading the race, test & R&D team in the role of assistant technical director. During his time at Prost, he introduced new disciplines, such as predictive aerodynamic modelling with computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

In 2001, after the demise of Prost, Loïc joined Minardi F1 until 2003, before undertaking a brief spell as a consultant working on aerodynamics programmes with a variety of IRL teams, including Cheever Indy Racing before progressively working as a consultant to all GM Indy teams.

At the start of 2004, Loïc joined WilliamsF1 as Senior Aerodynamicist, with responsibility for the development of the team's 2005 race car, the FW27. He was promoted to Chief Aerodynamicist at the end of the year.

It is unclear at this time where Ms Terzi is heading.