Department mgmt
Head / Director of Race Engineering
Manages the entire team's trackside engineering operation, unifying engineering standards, staffing, and cross-departmental information flow across both cars.
Entry difficulty
Extremely high
Path position
End point / management promotion
Usually requires many years of experience as a race engineer or chief/senior race engineer, plus the ability to manage two cars and cross-departmental engineering decisions.
Typical path: Promoted from senior race engineer or chief race engineer roles.
Will JosephGianpiero LambiasePeter BonningtonXavier Marcos Padros
Car lead
Senior / Chief Race Engineer
Takes on senior oversight for a specific driver or across multiple cars, commonly seen in dual-engineer structures or during a new team's build-up period.
Entry difficulty
Extremely high
Path position
Senior seat after RE
Requires already being able to independently run a driver and the weekend engineering process, as well as overseeing younger race engineers or a new engineering structure.
Typical path: Promoted after many years of experience as a race engineer, or held concurrently with a chief trackside engineering role.
Chris CroninGary GannonXavier Marcos Padros
Car lead
Race Engineer
The driver's main point of contact while in the car, coordinating the race weekend plan, setup direction, strategy information, and driver feedback — the front-facing lead of the single-car engineering group.
Entry difficulty
Extremely high
Not an entry-level role straight out of graduation; requires driver trust, on-the-spot judgment, communication skills, and years of experience in performance, data, or lower-category racing.
Typical path: Usually promoted from performance engineer, with a few entering F1 directly from junior formulae or other racing series while already carrying race engineering experience.
Will JosephTom StallardBryan BozziLaura Müller
Pit wall / strategy
Strategy Engineer / Strategist
Uses real-time race state, tyre models, and rival behavior to devise pit stop and race strategy, typically working on the pit wall or in a remote support room.
Entry difficulty
Very high
Path position
Analysis entry / lateral springboard
Requires real-time decision-making, probabilistic modeling, and the ability to perform under pressure; can move laterally into performance or trackside engineering, but is not the only route into a race engineer role.
Typical path: May come from a background in mathematical modeling, operations research/optimization, data science, or strategy analysis roles, and can also move into trackside engineering.
Richard Wood
Car support
Performance Engineer
Works most closely with the race engineer, analyzing telemetry, simulation, and vehicle setup, and is responsible for turning lap-time potential into concrete setup recommendations.
Entry difficulty
Very high
Path position
Last stop before RE / key springboard
Usually already a core garage role, requiring the ability to translate data, simulation, and driver feedback into setup direction.
Typical path: The most common step before race engineer; many current race engineers spent years as performance engineers before being promoted.
Richard WoodLaura MüllerRonan O'HareStuart Barlow
Factory-to-track
Design / Aero / Reliability Engineer
Most engineers in these roles work at the factory rather than trackside, designing, optimizing, and ensuring the reliability and speed of the car and power unit; a few later move into trackside groups.
Path position
Factory entry / specialist track
There are more positions than on the trackside side, but getting into a top team is still highly competitive; moving into a race engineer role also requires gaining trackside experience.
Typical path: From a factory specialism into trackside support, then into performance or race engineering.
Will JosephBryan Bozzi
Car support
Data / Systems / Controls Engineer
Handles vehicle telemetry, electronic controls, race starts and subsystem setup - often the first job for engineers entering an F1 trackside team.
Seniority
Entry to mid-level
Path position
Common entry point
Closer to an entry-level role than a race engineer, but still demands strong data skills, electronic systems knowledge, control logic, and an awareness of trackside reliability.
Typical path: The common path is Data/Systems/Controls Engineer -> Performance Engineer -> Race Engineer.
Peter BonningtonGianpiero LambiaseJose Manuel Lopez Garcia
Car support
Power Unit Performance / Systems Engineer
Responsible for power unit performance deployment, mode usage, and reliability risk, usually liaising with the race engineer to have the driver adjust power unit settings.
Entry difficulty
Very high
Path position
Specialist track
The power unit is a highly specialized role, usually requiring a background in engines, hybrid systems, reliability, or controls.
Typical path: A more powertrain-focused specialist path, which can move toward performance, reliability, or trackside engineering management.
Shared trackside
Trackside Aerodynamicist
Feeds trackside aerodynamic data back to the engineering station and the factory, helping assess upgrades, balance, and cooling windows.
Entry difficulty
Very high
Path position
Specialist springboard
Trackside positions are very limited; candidates typically need to first prove themselves in factory aerodynamics, CFD, wind tunnel, or vehicle performance roles.
Typical path: Typically comes from aerodynamics, CFD, wind tunnel, or vehicle performance roles.
Gary Gannon
Shared trackside
Tyre Engineer
Monitors tyre temperatures, degradation, pressure windows, and strategy constraints, often as a shared resource across two cars.
Path position
Specialist entry / support role
Requires vehicle dynamics, thermal window, and data modeling skills; positions are few, but it is a more accessible specialist entry point than race engineer.
Typical path: Typically comes from vehicle dynamics, data analysis, or tyre/performance specialist roles.
Factory-to-track
Simulation / Simulator Engineer
Responsible for driver-in-the-loop work, vehicle modeling, and pre-/post-race simulation — a common stepping stone for many F1 engineers moving from the factory to the track.
Seniority
Entry to mid-level
Path position
Factory entry / springboard
Doesn't necessarily require trackside experience first, but demands modeling, vehicle dynamics, and data analysis skills, and is a common stepping stone into performance engineering.
Typical path: A common path is simulator/simulation -> performance engineering -> race engineering.
Will JosephTom Stallard
