What I tell young people who want to work in motorsport

Careers in F1, Formula E and motorsport

This is the most common question I get asked. After almost every talk, someone comes up and says, “My son (or daughter, nephew, niece) wants to work in motorsport. How do they get into F1?”

I’ve been lucky: Arrows, McLaren, technical director at Super Aguri F1, championships in Formula E with DS Techeetah, and now Motorsport Director at Lola Cars and team principal of our Formula E team. Nobody handed me a map. This is my advice to get into F1 and the wider industry: what to do at school, at sixth form and at university.

How to get into F1: the short version

1. Get your hands dirty now. STEM Racing at school, Formula Student at university. Can’t get on a team? Start your own, even a soapbox.
2. Find your edge. Mine was computers and simulation. Today it’s being AI-native.
3. Pick a specialism. Teams need engine, aero, tyre and simulation experts more than they need more people who want to be race engineers.
4. Think T-shaped. Big teams make you deep. Small teams make you broad. Over time you want both.
5. Read what the industry reads. Racecar Engineering, Race Tech, and Milliken’s Race Car Vehicle Dynamics.
6. Keep applying. I sent about ten applications and got one job. I still have my Ferrari rejection letter.
7. Build your network. Ask people for 20 minutes. Most will say yes.
8. Go where the work is, and don’t over-plan. F1 is mostly the UK, Italy and Switzerland. Point yourself in the direction you want to go and don’t worry too much about the journey.

Jump to: The advice · Watch and listen · Resources by age · Questions I get asked · Get the careers note

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The advice

A few weeks ago a second-year engineering student got in touch. He had applied twice to join his university’s Formula Student team and been turned down both times. Hundreds of people apply. His question was the one I hear most: “Where do I start?”

I told him three things. Turn up in person. Start a project of your own. Show your working. That is more or less the whole of this page.

I get the question from students after talks, from parents, and by email and on calls: “My son wants to work in F1, what do I tell him?” “My niece is mad about Formula E, how can I help?” So I’m writing my answer down once, so I can point people to it. It covers how to get into F1 and motorsport more broadly, whether you’re 12 or in your final year at university.

One caveat. This is my view, from one career: Monash, Arrows, McLaren, Super Aguri, Formula E and Lola. Other people will tell you something different, and some of them will be right. Take what’s useful.

Start now: F1 in Schools, Formula Student and building things

Formula Student is the best way into motorsport engineering I know. A team of students designs, builds and races a car against other universities, and people from the industry judge it. I’ve been a judge at Formula Student in Portugal. The event is judged on cost and business as well as design, so teams need more than engineers. When I read a CV, Formula Student tells me you’ve done it, not just studied it.

So when a student tells me he wants to get into motorsport, I ask: have you got a Formula Student team at your university? Usually the answer is yes. Then: have you been to see them? Have you been to an event? Mostly the answer is no.

Go and find your team. Find out when they meet and walk in. Don’t wait for an email reply. If you applied and didn’t get a place, as the student I mentioned didn’t, that is normal when hundreds apply. Keep turning up, and ask what you can help with.

If that still doesn’t work, start your own project. I never had Formula Student. There wasn’t a team at Monash, so I found the only racing car builder in Australia and turned up. On the second day they told me they hadn’t expected me back. I came back. The Spectrum Formula Ford I helped design there finished second in the 1996 Australian Formula Ford Championship. Build a soapbox racer, build anything, and write up what you learned. That is a portfolio.

Go and watch Formula Student at Silverstone too (check the IMechE site for dates and tickets). It’s the quickest way to see what this world looks like, and the teams will talk to you.

If you’re a parent

For younger children the answer is the same idea, only smaller: get them making things.

• F1 in Schools, now called STEM Racing, has pupils design, make and race miniature cars and run a team around them, with branding and sponsorship. There is a primary version for ages 9 to 11.
• Greenpower lets a school build and race a real electric car: Formula Goblin at 9 to 11, Formula 24 at 11 to 16.
• Scalextric is a brilliant start: tuning, gearing and racing your friends. Scalextric4Schools is a design-and-race competition for secondary schools.
• Soapbox racing is a full engineering project in miniature. My nephew is building one now, and it has turned into a family project around the kitchen table, with my parents, my sisters and the nieces and nephews all involved.

If your school has nothing like this, that’s common, and it’s fixable. A school doesn’t need an expert. It needs one keen teacher. A parent-teacher association is a good way to find that teacher and to help with the small amount of money a team needs. STEM Racing, which runs F1 in Schools, has a page for teachers with free CAD training and downloads.

A note for Formula Student teams

You are the front door to the industry for a lot of students who are too shy to knock. Make it easy to join. Publish your meeting times, give first-years a small, real job, and take people to events. And write about what you’re doing, especially how you’re using new tools like AI. Teams and recruiters read it.

Find your specialism, and your edge (it used to be CAD; now it’s AI)

When I graduated in Australia there was one automotive graduate job going, at Ford, in production. I wanted to do simulation.

My edge was computers. Analysis tools like CFD (computational fluid dynamics, which simulates airflow), CAE (computer-aided engineering) and CAD (computer-aided design) were new, and most engineers around me didn’t use them. At university I wrote my own simulation software because we had no data loggers. The maths is in a post of mine, Simple Vehicle Simulation. At GM Holden I ran my first crash simulations, which meant building the model by hand and waiting overnight for the answer. That specialism is what eventually got me to Formula 1.

Today’s equivalent is being AI-native. Thirty years ago my edge was CAD and simulation. Now it’s knowing how to use AI faster and better than everyone else on your course, while understanding the engineering well enough to know when it’s wrong. I wrote about why in The Friction Tax. Recently I had an AI tool build a working phone app in about 30 minutes, and another produce a CAD model of a soapbox racer from a single sentence.

So use AI on real engineering problems: CAD, simulation, vehicle dynamics, data. Then show your working. Nobody can see what you can do with these tools unless you show them.

Specialists win races. I don’t need more people who want to be race engineers. Everybody wants to be a race engineer. What makes the car faster is specialist knowledge, usually in the engine, the aero or the tyres.

“A specialism is useful… I chose a specialism, stress analyst and calculations, and that took me through my career in motorsport.”

Choose the subjects you enjoy and that come easiest to you. Then check them against what F1 and Formula E teams ask for in their job adverts.

A recent example: an engineer at a tyre manufacturer got in touch about moving into motorsport. Five years in industry, good experience, but broad: project management, feasibility studies, scaling up production. Teams don’t hire broad. I asked him which university subjects he’d found easiest and enjoyed most, and told him to go deep there. If it’s tyre modelling, that means serious maths and tools such as MATLAB and Simulink.

Build a T-shaped career: big teams, small teams

Big teams make you a deep specialist. That’s the stem of the T. Small teams make you a generalist, because you do a bit of everything. That’s the top of the T.

“So I went sort of big team, small team, big team, small team.”

Moving from Australia to Arrows felt like having ten times the people, ideas and resources. McLaren had about 550 people when I was there in 2002. A small team can be 25. Each move taught me something the other couldn’t.

A technical director ends up as a generalist whose job is to ask hard questions, sometimes the dumb ones, across aero, design, R&D, electronics and the track. I tell the longer version of that story, and what the job involves, in how to become an F1 technical director.

If you want to run things one day, there is one more thing. At an MIA event at Silverstone this spring, a student asked how hard it is for an engineer to move into business and fundraising, because engineers are said to be poor salespeople. I told him raising money is harder than engineering, because engineering has a clearer path. I did an MBA to understand the business side. And I told him to try selling things, repeatedly, until it stops feeling strange.

Read what the industry reads

I’m always surprised how many students don’t know Racecar Engineering and Race Tech. Read them. You’ll understand the industry, the people and the problems far better, and it shows in an interview.

If you’re serious about vehicle dynamics, read Milliken and Milliken, Race Car Vehicle Dynamics. It’s the book on the shelf in most teams. OptimumG runs vehicle dynamics seminars and has student resources.

And build your own tools. A lap-time or tyre model in Excel and VBA, Python or MATLAB teaches you more than reading alone. That’s how I learned.

Keep applying: how to get a job in F1 after rejections

When I decided to come to the UK, I sent about ten applications by fax. I got one job, at Arrows. I still have my rejection letter from Ferrari, on Ferrari letterhead, from John Barnard. Later I worked for him at Arrows. Lola took me three goes.

You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. That is the thing I live by.

I came to the UK in 1996 because a motorsport journalist, Barry Lake, asked me why I didn’t just go.

The people who write to me now hear the same thing. A postgraduate motorsport student told me that most roles ask for experience they don’t have. That is true of almost everyone starting out. Do three things. Apply for the jobs that are advertised. Send your CV to each team’s HR so you are on file when something comes up. And keep checking the careers pages. Expect plenty of no’s and plenty of silence. Teams get far more applications than they have roles.

Junior formulae (F4, F3, F2), Formula E, endurance racing and suppliers are all real routes in. A first job at a supplier or in a smaller series counts.

Build a network and find mentors

It’s a people industry. When I was a student, Adrian Newey gave a friend and me 20 minutes in the pit lane at Adelaide. Years later I worked with him at McLaren and told him that was part of why I came. I try to do the same now. I judge student competitions, talk to engineering students, and take calls from people who write to me. Recent calls have included an engineering student, a law student, an engineer at a tyre company and a product manager from biotech.

I can’t do this for everyone, which is partly why I’ve written this page. Here is how to ask well. Be specific. Be brief. Say what you’ve built. Ask for 20 minutes, not a job. Say thank you afterwards.

Join IMechE or the IET as a student. Volunteer as a marshal with Motorsport UK: you get the best view in the house and you meet people in the sport.

Go where the work is: Motorsport Valley, Italy and Switzerland

Formula 1 is pretty much the UK, Italy and Switzerland. Around Oxford and Silverstone there’s Motorsport Valley, which works a bit like Silicon Valley, with more than 40,000 people working in it. If one project stops, there is usually another starting down the road.

Being willing to move matters. I’m Australian, and my one regret is not coming to the UK sooner. If you’re outside the UK, check visa rules early. They shape your choices more than you expect.

Careers in F1 aren’t only for engineers

Motorsport needs lawyers, finance people, marketers, writers, logistics people, software developers and people who run events. The same rules apply as for engineers: specialise in your own field, and build experience in smaller series before aiming at F1.

Law. A law student asked me how to build a legal career in the sport. There is real work. Many driver managers are lawyers. Teams need contracts for sponsors, suppliers and drivers. Some teams employ lawyers to interpret the regulations, and when a protest is lodged the deadline is short. I told her to lead with law, not PR and marketing, because there is less competition. Find out whether the roles you want need a full legal qualification. Look at the junior legal counsel roles that teams advertise. And get experience in F4, F3 or F2 before aiming at F1, which is also what engineers she had talked to had told her.

Product and commercial. A product manager from biotech asked how to switch into motorsport. I told her to put stakeholder alignment much more prominently on her CV, and to build skills that connect her product experience to motorsport.

Writing and media. If you want to write about the sport, send samples, not just a CV. Show me your work.

Hospitality and events. Series and teams hire for race weekends. Check their careers pages and those of their hospitality providers.

What I actually look for when I hire

• A learning mindset. I’d rather hire someone who learns quickly than someone with a perfect CV.
• Communication. It is the difference between a good engineer and a great one. Most problems in a team come from poor communication somewhere.
• Proof you’ve built things. A car, a tool, a model, a soapbox, a website. Show me, don’t tell me. Formula Student tells me you can work in a team.
• A specialism, and the curiosity to understand the whole car.
• Fluency with AI tools.

Getting into motorsport without a fixed plan

I nearly went to Thailand with GM. I never planned to come to the UK, and I have been here since 1996. Nobody’s career in motorsport has gone exactly to plan, mine included. So point yourself in the direction you want to go, and don’t worry too much about the journey.

A note for parents. Help them find the clubs, the competitions and the reading, and let them do the asking. If they want work experience, here is my honest answer. I can’t arrange placements personally, and race weekends are the hardest time to host anyone: garages are small and everyone is busy. The better route is to write to a team’s HR and ask for time outside a race weekend. Some events offer guest passes for school groups. And programmes like STEM Racing, Greenpower and Year in Industry placements for school leavers will teach them more than a day watching.

Want the occasional update when I add advice or new programmes? Get the careers note.

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