Working in F1:

Career Advice Q&A with Andrew Shovlin

How Can I get A Job in F1?

"When you think about getting into F1, you often think it is going to be impossible. But it really is not. There are a lot of routes in, and lots of different roles for different people.

"Every team is keen for young talent, and we are all competing against each other to attract that. Often when we interview for an industrial placement here, they have also been interviewed at Red Bull, McLaren, and other teams. Everybody wants the best people to come and join them, and a lot of effort goes into doing that.

"It is not as hard as you think, you have got to try different things, but if you persevere, it is definitely doable.

"I have made contact with enthusiastic students in the past and gone on to hear that they have got jobs at other teams like Williams, Haas, or McLaren.

"They did not have a head start, they just thought 'that looks interesting' what could I do there?"

Do I Need Specific Qualifications?

"For our team, it is about a lot more than just your education or your degree.

"It is not all about experience and qualifications. There is a whole list of qualities that we look for, to see how you can bring value to this team, but you need to be really open-minded about that.

"My experience before starting here was with lorries and trucks, but it did not stop me getting a job in F1. I did not have experience of motorsport, but I did understand how things worked.

"We look for people skills. To make over 1,000 people work effectively you need people who can interact with each other and can bring out the best in others. That is important.

"Sometimes it comes down to how do you cope under pressure, how do you resolve conflict and those type of situations. Those skills are important in the day-to-day.

"When you are dealing with competitive racing drivers who want to beat each other, you need to know how to manage that in a constructive way - and that is not always easy to do!"

What Job Can I Have in F1?

"All of our team members have aspirations on what they want to achieve here when they start. They may even aspire to a role that they do not have the skills to do.

"It is our role to help them develop those skillsets. We want to make sure we are developing team members to keep them interested in what they are doing.

"When I first started at the team, I was one of two people in the Vehicle Dynamics Department straight out of university. I have had a few different roles since then, and so many of them came from having the mindset of 'that looks interesting, let me try that.'

"A lot of people looking to get into F1 might want to be a race engineer, for example. But there are only 20 cars on the grid, so only 20 race engineers. There are over 1,000 people in this team, but just two race engineers. It is important to make sure you look at other roles, too.

"It is really important to sit down and focus on what your strengths are. What do I want to do? What are my interests? What is the right area of the sport for me to get into?

"Have an idea of where you want to end up, but that is not necessarily where you start. It is about the best route for the journey."

What Advice Can You Give Someone Looking to Work in F1?

"A lot of people have seen Drive to Survive on Netflix and think it looks cool. I grew up watching F1, but you must love the subject.

"When you get to the sport, whether as an engineer, an aerodynamicist, or a designer you have got to really enjoy that because in a week you might have two hours of motor racing but there are another 40-50 hours of the job to do.

"Doing a subject you love makes your whole career interesting, so make sure you enjoy it, that is they key. If you enjoy the challenge, it keeps you interested."

What is the culture like working at Mercedes?

"When I started, it was always you blame people when things went wrong. But now, we just look at the process, work out why did it fail? What do we need to improve on? How do we make sure that does not happen again?

"That is how we look to get the best out of our team members and maximise the performance of every strand of our business, including on track."