Police investigating Renault factory death

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Police are investigating the death of a man at the Renault F1 team’s headquarters in Enstone, Oxfordshire.

According to a report in the Oxford Mail:

Police have released no information about their investigation and would not comment tonight on reports that a firearm was involved in yesterday’s incident, which happened at around 11am. Paramedics were called to the plant in Whiteways Technical Centre near Enstone at about 11.20am.

Comments are welcome as usual but please bear in mind a person has died and do take extra care to avoid lurid speculation or disrespectful remarks. Thank you.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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13 comments on “Police investigating Renault factory death”

  1. Renault has confirmed the incident. The man who lost his life is William Millar, who worked for the R&D department.

    I would like to express my sincere condolences to his family and the team.

  2. This is really sad news :(

  3. Autosport have given a little more information, although not much.

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/69560

  4. shame that this article hasn’t had as many comments as it should, probably because we dont know what to say.

    this is a gentleman that helped to create the machines we love to watch race.

    my heart goes out to his family x

  5. Well said Sush

  6. I was going to post earlier but I reckon my comment would have fallen under the category of lurid speculation.

    Sush is right though, we should be thankful the guy lived and helped to produce such great machines. Its just difficult to know what to say about stuff like this apart from asking why.

  7. Sad news indeed,even if we don’t know him personally,he was a cog in the wheel that keeps our racing world going…sincere condolences to the Millar family and his Renault co-workers.

  8. A very sad day for not just Renault, but the entire F1 community. My prayers and sympathy go out to his family and friends, as well as his co-workers at Renault.

  9. I, too, send my condolences to the Millar family and friends…

  10. I was lucky enough to meet Bill on a number of occasions, he was such a character, so so knowledgeable about F1 and especially renault and Bennetton. I’m so sad and shocked that this has happened and grateful that you are respecting the family and friends and avoiding speculation.

  11. update on this story –

    accordingly to BBC, apparently the Renault research and development engineer William Millar shot himself. He had been with the team 27 years. The police are not treating the incident with suspicion.

    see
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/7538651.stm

  12. Whatever the cause of Mr Miller’s death, it does not change the outcome. I wish his family and friends well in this time of grief and loss for them, and for Formula One.
    I can only hope that one of the cars he helped to create, pulls off the upset of the season tomorrow. What a tribute that would be to such a great, and clever man.

    R.I.P.

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