Race Engineers are undoubtedly one of the most entities in an F1 team. They play a huge role in guiding drivers to success and are constantly in touch with them throughout a race. A huge part of their job includes relaying information to the driver from the team and crew, therefore, acting as the bridge between them.
The engineers keep an eye on the data, vehicle condition, and performance and relay them to the driver to maximize their performance. While Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Michael Schumacher, and Sebastian Vettel are regarded as some of the most successful drivers on the planet, their race engineers often stay in the shadows.
Some, however, like Peter Bonnington and Gianpiero Lambiase get fame because of the drivers whom they represent. Other than them, there is also Xavier Marcos Padros, who is Charles Leclerc’s race engineer.
Top drivers require a top race engineer, that is no secret. Keeping that, and the names of the three race engineers mentioned before in mind, lets have a look at these unsung heroes who represent some of the best in F1.
Max Verstappen – Gianpiero Lambiase
Gianpiero Lambiase is a British engineer and has been with Red Bull since 2015. He worked with Team Silverstone, in its various names and was even Sergio Perez’s race engineer when the outfit was known as Force India.
The 43-year-old was initially supposed to work with Sebastian Vettel but after he left, he started a partnership with Daniil Kvyat. Max Verstappen replaced him in 2016 and Lambiase became his race engineer. In 2022, the British engineer took over the role of Head of Race Engineering at Red Bull from Guillaume Rocquelin but also maintained his position with Verstappen.
Verstappen and Lambiase share a special bond, and despite their fights and arguments over the team radio, are inseparable. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner even described them as an ‘old married couple’.
Sergio Perez – Hugh Bird
Hugh Bird is a British engineer associated with Sergio Perez in Red Bull. He began his career in motorsport when he became the simulation and analysis engineer for Red Bull in 2012. After this, he took the role of the simulation performance engineer in 2015 and stayed in that position till 2017.
Bird took the role of Verstappen’s performance engineer in 2018. However, in 2021, after Sergio Perez joined Red Bull, Bird became the voice in Perez’ year, helping him through the races.
Lewis Hamilton – Peter Bonnington
Peter Bonnington, commonly known among F1 fans as ‘Bono’, too, hails from England. He has been a part of the Brackley-based F1 outfit, even before Mercedes came into F1. He began his career in F1 with Jordan when he took the role of the data engineer in the early 2000s. During this time he worked with the likes of Timo Glock, and Giorgio Pantano.
Working for Brawn GP, Bonnington helped Jenson Button win his only world title in 2009, before becoming the performance engineer for Michael Schumacher in 2010. Bonnington joined Lewis Hamilton in 2013 and has been the race engineer for him ever since. Together, they have create some unforgettable memories, including Bonington’s famous catchphrase – “It’s Hammer time”.
Charles Leclerc – Xavier Marcos Padros
Xavier Marcos Padros is the first non-British race engineer on the list. Hailing from Spain, Padros started his career as a race engineer in the BNC Racing Team before he moved to HRT in 2012. He then moved to Williams Racing to be the race engineer for Felipe Massa.
Padros also has experience in NASCAR as he became the race engineer for Richard Childress Racing in 2015. However, he didn’t stay in the US for long, as he returned to F1 in 2018. Scuderia Ferrari became his destination of choice, but he started working with Charles Leclerc in 2019. The unfortunate job of delivering some pretty bad news over the radio belongs to Padros.
George Russell – Marcus Dudley
Marcus Dudley, like his driver-partner George Russell, is from England. At Mercedes for over a decade now, his motorsport career started as a Mathematical Modeler with Honda back in 2006. Following this, he joined Arden International Motorsport as a GP2 Performance Engineer in 2009.
Dudley returned to F1 with the Marussia F1 team as a Junior Performance Engineer in January 2012 and stayed with the team for over a year. He joined Mercedes as a Performance Engineer in 2013 and has been with the team since then.
Carlos Sainz – Riccardo Adami
Riccardo Adami is an Italian race engineer currently working for Scuderia Ferrari. Earlier, he was the race engineer for Sebastian Vettel, but currently, he is on duty for Carlos Sainz. Adami’s career in F1 began with Minardi in 2002, and he remained with them until the Red Bull takeover and Toro Rosso rebranding.
In 2015, Adami moved to Ferrari after working with the likes of Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel. The 50-year-old joined Sainz Jr. as his race engineer after Vettel’s departure in 2020, and has been with him ever since.
Perhaps Sainz’s favorite moment with Ricciardo came after his emphatic 2023 Singapore GP win. The Spaniard took to the team radio, to sing ‘Smooth Operator’ with Adami.
Lando Norris – William Joseph and Jose Manuel Lopez
Lando Norris worked with two race engineers last year and the trend is expected to go about the same. Andrea Stella, the team principal of McLaren said that the reason behind rotating the race engineers is to reduce the workload on them for a 24 race season. Therefore, both William Joseph and Jose Manuel Lopez Garcia worked with the Briton.
Will Joseph is a British Formula 1 engineer who began his career as a Race Engineer for Cobra Racing in 2011. Following a short stint, he joined McLaren and has been with the team for over 17 years now. He is the director of the race engineer now for the Woking-based team.
Jose Manuel Lopez got his F1 experience after he worked all the way up from Formula E, Formula 2, and then in F1. He joined the Haas F1 team in November 2015 as a Performance Engineer and Test Race Engineer and worked with drivers like Kevin Magnussen, Pietro Fittipaldi, and Esteban Gutierrez. In the end, he joined McLaren in April 2020 and has been with the team since.
Fernando Alonso – Chris Cronin
Chris Cronin is the current race engineer for Fernando Alonso. Apart from doing the difficult job of handling Alonso, he also worked with Sebastian Vettel during the German’s brief stint in Silverstone. He also worked with Esteban Ocon during their Force India days.
2023 was successful for Cronin, Alonso and Aston Martin as a whole. They had eight podium finishes to their name, and Cronin will surely want to be in Alonso’s year, if Aston Martin makes strides and pushes for race wins in 2024.
Daniel Ricciardo – Pierre Hamelin
The charismatic Daniel Ricciardo made a return to F1 in 2023, after spending half a season in the sidelines. He joined AlphaTauri (now Visa Cash App RB) and Pierre Hamelin became his race engineer. Hamelin began his motorsport career with Lotus Renault GP back in 2009 as an R&D Engineer and then moved to the Race Support Engineer role in 2012. Following this, Hamelin moved to Toro Rosso in 2014 as a Performance Engineer and has been with the team since.
Hamelin took the role of Race Engineer in May 2016 for the Faenza-based team and is in the same role. Toro Rosso then got rebranded to AlphaTauri and again got its name changed to Visa Cash App RB, while he will remain the race engineer for Ricciardo in 2024.
Valtteri Bottas – Alex Chan
Alex Chan is the current race engineer for Valtteri Bottas. He is the second Finn to work with Chan after the race engineer earlier worked with Kimi Raikkonen in the Alfa Romeo F1 team. As Alfa Romeo got rebranded to the Stake F1 team, this didn’t change Chan’s position as he is all set to remain in the team as Bottas’ engineer.
