The people who get inside a driver’s head at a race weekend
Formula 1 might be a high-tech endeavour, but the human relationship between the driver and their race engineer is a make-or-break element of it. And this is one aspect of F1 which can’t be optimised with a computer…
A Formula 1 driver is the sole occupant of the cockpit. But they are far from alone.
The radio connects them to their engineers – chiefly, their race and performance engineers – but also a wider selection of senior personnel if a situation requires further input. These voices are key to every driver’s session – and some of them, such as Peter Bonnington (Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes race engineer) – or Rob Smedley, who made a famous connection with Felipe Massa at Ferrari, become well-known as a result.
There are other engineers that make up the vital team-within-a-team for every driver – tyre specialists, aerodynamicists, controls engineers, engine engineers, and on it goes. An F1 driver can really never succeed alone.
But the role of race engineer is a pivotal link between what the driver is encountering on track and everything else in a grand prix event. Whether that’s how best to set up the car in the garage or change its settings while on-track – where the performance engineer role dovetails – or managing an unfolding session: what other cars are doing, where traffic is a factor, incidents and strategy calls.
Simply put, it is vital that a driver and race engineer work well together. Performance and results aside, at 200mph safety is a critical factor – which adds another dimension to the trust that must exist. If this is correctly established, success can happen, but if it is not then things will go wrong fast – or they may never go right in the first place.
From time to time these relationships are changed forever. An engineer could be switched to new responsibilities or leave for another team. Some drivers have imported particular engineers with them at new squads – such as Jacques Villeneuve bringing Jock Clear with him from Williams to BAR.
But sometimes these changes stem from a particular problem – underperformance. Ahead of the 2020 British GP, Red Bull revealed that Simon Rennie, who had worked with Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo, and whose decision to step back to a factory role was a factor in Ricciardo’s decision to leave the team, would be brought back to be Alex Albon’s race engineer, while Mike Lugg went in the opposite direction.
This is far from the first example of such a move – a helpful historical example is Smedley replacing Gabriele delli Colli to work with Massa five races into the start of the Brazilian’s long stint as a Ferrari race driver in 2006. The chemistry between Smedley and Massa was obvious – but that relationshipdefining characteristic is important when it comes to a driverrace engineer partnership succeeding.
And it takes time to build. Some drivers arrive at a team with years of experience, while others will be on the first steps of their F1 journey. This variation can have a key impact. While some younger drivers may be headstrong and confident, it’s not for nothing the most successful squads emphasise the importance of being humble and willing to learn – even after years where victories pile up. But as they develop, drivers can see the difference in quality engineers for themselves.
“When I started racing with Rubens, he was testing [me],” says GP Racing’s technical consultant Rodi Basso – Rubens Barrichello’s race performance engineer at Ferrari between 2002-2005. “He was leading the relationship a bit in the beginning. When he could see he could trust me, then everything went a bit more horizontal. We were then evolving together – both the performance and the relationship.”
If that chemistry is correct, the race engineer can bring a driver to their ultimate potential, but also help them recover ground if things are amiss. Motorsport is as much a human test as an engineering endeavour – the best drivers dedicate themselves to perfecting their fitness, diet, sleep and psychological state. It doesn’t stop with them, either: the teams know the value of happy and healthy engineers and mechanics.
Then there’s how this relationship can impact actual engineering. Taking an example of snap oversteer on corner exit, often this is actually caused by high-speed understeer on turn-in. So, a driver may report alarming oversteer, but the race engineer must use data to reveal this is a symptom rather than a cause.
“This is all finesse that you build by educating each other,” says Basso, who feels that the competence element a driver is searching for in their race engineer relationship is roughly “20-30% of what makes the best chemistry”.
Teams have their own methods to ensure these relationships work as they must. At Williams, head of vehicle performance Dave Robson explains that the squad employs various training camps in the off-season, as well as specific communications courses during the year. Then there’s testing and the many simulator sessions the drivers complete throughout a year.
“We do other activities as well as we can,” says Robson. “It’s not easy this year. And that’s difficult for Nicholas [Latifi], with the general state of play around the world.”
Carlos Sainz – who says he has no plans “at the moment” to bring his race engineer Tom Stallard or his performance engineer Adrian Goodwin with him to Ferrari in 2021 – utilised his time living away from his friends by substituting in his engineers after finishing work at the Mclaren factory. “In the past before Corona[virus], we could socialise a bit,” he explains.
But the key element that cannot be understated is the time it takes to build and perfect any relationship – and this one is no different.
“It’s just something that’s evolving all the way, still doing so now, and will continue to happen over the years,” says Lando Norris, who is working with a second performance engineer in two years in F1, Jose Manuel López García, alongside race engineer Will Joseph. But if things are not improving after enough time has passed, a big call may become necessary. Changing a race engineer is not done lightly – it’s a very public move which impacts both parties.
“In general, the driver doesn’t get more than two chances to change the team just to justify underperformance,” says Basso. So, if the problem remains, it will be up to a team’s leadership to look deeper and make further changes – for good or bad.
A key aspect to consider is drivers are both leaders at a team and ‘customers’ of the product it produces – the car. Criticism must be delivered with consideration of all consequences, but at the same time harsh feedback can fix a problem.
Drivers wield enormous power, but must do so with care. If they use it incorrectly or at the wrong time it can have serious negative consequences for both themselves and the team. For this reason, Red Bull will be watching every detail of Albon’s performance now that the most important bond a driver needs has been changed.
With Lugg, at the opening three races of 2020, Albon’s average qualifying gap to team-mate Max Verstappen was 0.551s. Excluding the first Silverstone race, where Rennie took up his old role, over the next three races the average gap increased slightly to 0.572s, coming down to 0.503s after Monza. Albon, who had previously worked with Rennie in Red Bull’s simulator, says things are “falling in pretty smoothly – it’s been going well”.
Ultimately the buck stops with the driver, who must pay careful attention to the most human values of their work to triumph as part of a team. It’s up to them to realise that they cannot succeed alone.
“IF THINGS ARE NOT IMPROVING AFTER ENOUGH TIME HAS PASSED, A BIG CALL MAY BECOME NECESSARY. CHANGING A RACE ENGINEER IS NOT DONE LIGHTLY – IT’S A VERY PUBLIC MOVE”