It is not impossible to get a job in F1, claims Mercedes' Andrew Shovlin
For any young motorsport fan, the chance to work in the sport you love can be very appealing. Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin insists that it is far from impossible to find a job at the pinnacle of motorsport.
In the same way a young go-karter might dream of one day racing in F1, so too could an aspiring engineer look to reach the pinnacle of motorsport.
Having been based in Brackley since 1999. when the team was known as BAR, Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin reckons that it is not impossible to get into the world of Formula One.
"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?"
When asked whether an engineer needs to have a specific education or qualification, Shovlin claims that F1 teams look for people who can "bring value" with them rather than having a wealth of experience or having received expectional education.
"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!"
Shovlin has revealed that many engineers who get the chance to work in Formula One are intent on becoming race engineer. However, with only 20 drivers on the grid, there are only 20 engineers who can fulfil that role.
"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."
When asked for an advice that he can give someone looking to work in F1, Shovlin reckons that anyone who gets the chance to work at the pinnacle of motorsport needs to enjoy his work as the majority of the work is hard work as it can be different to what people get to see in a F1-themed film.
"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."
Pushed on to reveal what is the culture like working at Mercedes, Shovlin insists that the "blame culture" now belongs to the past.
"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."
