Laura Mueller, F1’s first female racing engineer

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Haas has appointed Laura Muller as Esteban Ocon’s race engineer for the 2025 F1 season.


With the restructuring of the engineering team of Haas, Laura Muller will become the career engineer of Esteban Ocon for this season, while Carine Cridelich will join from Racing Bulls as head of strategy in March.

Although the number of female engineers working in senior positions in the F1 has increased, Mueller She will be the first to work under the role of career engineer.

Laura was promoted after working as a performance engineer and will lead the car team. Oconwho joins haas after running with Alpine in the 2024 season.

The racing engineer position has a higher profile on the track by being in frequent communication with the driver, as well as overseeing the overall performance of the car.

Ayao Komatsuteam leader at haascommented that Laura Mueller She earned the position through her work on the team as a performance engineer.

“He is a very dedicated person, and he is also very hard-working. “His work ethic is very, very good,” he commented. Komatsu.

“She will be with Esteban as a racing engineer, and in terms of personality, Esteban is also very dedicated. For that part, I think he fits that personality quite well.”

“If you look at the number of female engineers we have in the office, it is definitely much higher than before, but I didn’t choose Laura because she was a woman. We don’t care about nationality, gender… it doesn’t really matter, what matters is the work, how can you fit into the team? How can you enhance the team’s performance?

After signing two new drivers for this season, Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman, Haas has changed the race engineers for both cars. Ronan O’Hare He will now take the position on Bearman’s team.

“They both have great potential and good determination,” he said. Komatsu about O’Hare and Mueller. “We decided to promote them internally because that also sends a good message to everyone else, that instead of looking for big names with experience outside the team, let’s promote (internally).”

“Some won’t have enough experience to start, but they will have great potential, great work ethic and good communication.”

This restructuring also includes the former racing engineer at the F1, Francesco Nenciwho arrives from the Audi Dakar Rally team where he was chief race engineer, and Mark Lowewho previously worked at haas as team manager and now returns as sports director.

Komatsu confirmed that Cridelich He will arrive from Red Bull on March 1: “We have been looking for a head of strategy for a long time,” he added.

The new season of haas It will begin testing the 2025 car on February 16, on a first day of filming at Silverstone.

Despite Esteban Ocon will use the new car on track, no images will be published until February 28, after the 75th anniversary of the F1 where all teams will reveal the cars for the 2025 season.

haas will complete a second day of filming in Bahrain with bearman behind the wheel on February 24, before pre-season testing begins.

After losing sixth place in the championship last season, Komatsu He commented that among the objectives for 2025 is to be consistent with the team’s results.

“We finished P7 last year. In the history of haas“Over the years, I don’t think we’ve been competitive in the season in a similar way.”

“For me, what has been encouraging about last year was that the way we competed in the season grew after we scored the most points in the last quarter of the year.”

“Since Monza, we only lost one point in Brazil. That was encouraging and I would like to continue that consistency.”

“However, I hope that the competition will be closer this year. Alpine, Williams, Sauber and R.B.… everyone is going to be better,” he commented.