The beginnings of Lewis Hamilton’s journey as a Ferrari Formula 1 driver have dominated F1’s 2025 pre-season - but how exactly would team boss Fred Vasseur deal with ‘on-boarding’ the most successful F1 driver in history to a new team?
That’s one of the many things Otmar Szafnauer tackles in the first episode of The Race’s brand new podcast series: The Team Principal Podcast.
In F1, the drivers may get the glory, but it’s the team principals who are under the most pressure. As the key figure in a multi-million dollar sporting organisation, the team principal has the challenging job of hiring and managing star drivers, overseeing the technical office that designs the cars, supporting the commercial team in securing sponsors, managing costs within a strict budget cap, and, of course, overseeing the running of two cars on grand prix weekends.
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Only a select few know what it takes to do the job, and Szafnauer - host of The Team Principal Podcast - is one of them.
As the former team principal of the Racing Point, Aston Martin and Alpine F1 teams, Otmar will share honest, unfiltered stories from his career with listeners, and use his unique viewpoint to reflect on breaking F1 news, as only a former team boss could.
He’ll also be joined by guests, including current and former F1 team principals, to discuss the thorny business of running a modern Formula 1 race team.
He’s spent the best part of the past 30 years working in Formula 1, including as operations director of British American Racing and then vice president of Honda - before joining Force India and becoming that team’s chief operating officer.
“In Formula 1, 90% of the work is done at the factory, 10% of it is done at the race track,” explains Szafnauer. “The team principals are often seen at the race track, because that’s where the cameras are, but for me 80/90% of my time was at the factory, not at the race weekend. That’s where the lion’s share of the work happens.
“I’d imagine most teams are a thousand plus now, and when you look at an organisation chart of a thousand people there’s a lot of boxes, a lot of names and a lot of lines!
“The team principal’s role is to be the white part of an organisation chart - to keep everybody together, keep everyone pulling in the same direction.
“It’s not the lines, and it’s not the names, but you as a team principal are making sure that the white bits in the organisation chart are functioning in the way they should be functioning.
“That glue that held everybody together - that was the team principal’s role. When he comes into the factory, he sprinkles a bit of fairy dust. Everybody wants to talk to him or her, have a bit of time, have his ear, make sure the team principal listens to everyone’s concerns, their suggestions, and implements all those that make sense to get better.”
Otmar's take on Hamilton's Ferrari move
In the first episode of the new The Team Principal Podcast podcast Otmar is joined by The Race's Ben Anderson to discuss how a team principal goes about integrating a new driver into a team.
Ben and Otmar discuss at length Hamilton's switch from Mercedes to Ferrari and the role Scuderia boss Vasseur will have played in helping the seven-time world champion settle over the winter.
Szafnauer offers his thoughts on what he'd do if he was in Vassuer's shoes, and then contrasts that approach with the tactic Mercedes boss Toto Wolff will have to adopt to help Hamilton's replacement - rookie Kimi Antonelli - settle into his new life as a full-time grand prix driver.
Szafnauer also reveals the techniques and strategies he used in his own career, and explains why being able to adapt your approach to suit the unique personality of each driver is so important for a team principal.
To round off the episode, Szafnauer casts an eye over 2025's driver pairings, giving his team principal take on which of the duos will be the most harmonious, which he'd like to manage, and which he expects to provide fireworks...
