In 2013, it was clear Mercedes F1 were on the rise. The rapid improvement the team had made in performance and race results had been a trend for a couple of years, having finished 2nd in the constructors championship the season before a major rule change. I was excited at the prospect of joining a team with the potential to reach the pinnacle and potentially win a championship. I joined the team in 2014 and have loved every moment since.
A large group of people within the team remain the same today as they were 6 years ago, though we have grown both in terms of capabilities and efficiency. Decisions are still made incredibly quickly and crucially; if you have an idea to add performance to the car, the resource and effort is always there to explore and develop them.
Race engineering had always excited me. It’s one of the parts you see on TV the most and therefore becomes one of the first roles within F1 you have awareness of. Both race engineering and VDG provide a huge amount of visibility on car performance, from car setup optimisation, looking at aero, suspension, tyres and power unit, to race weekend execution, dealing with pressure situations, communication and having visibility and awareness of strategy.
Joining the team as an industrial placement student, it was staggering how much information I was privy to from day 1. The only real limit was how much I could absorb and understand. The wealth of knowledge and information from colleagues for any questions I had was and still is incredible. Importantly, it was comforting that no matter the apparent simplicity of the question, I never had concerns to ask for help. People here are specialists in their fields and truly enjoy going back to first principles and explaining a problem mechanically. Whilst they may be asked the same questions every year from incoming cohorts, the depth of information provided and our understanding of the physics (aiding the explanation) improves each year.
To the outside world, there’s very little awareness of different roles within an F1 team. You catch glimpses of the race team on the TV and have some awareness of the factory operation from design, aerodynamics, manufacture and build, but an F1 organisation is much, much greater than this. Coming into the organisation as an industrial placement student or graduate, don’t worry about finding the perfect department to apply to, or dwell on the fact there’s not a position in the department you want to pursue a career in. Apply for a department that interests you. Once you join the team, you’ll quickly see the vastness of the organisation and the various departments you might not have considered. Naturally you will join projects with other groups within the team and this fluidity will help you understand precisely where your interests lie.
