F1 Team Principals - Meet all 10 of them

g'day every f1 team has a team principal someone responsible for the day-to-day running of the team the hiring the firing the managing and the motivating of hundreds of people in this video we'll delve deeper into the backgrounds of toto christian matia cyril andreas claire gunter franz fred and ottmar in just a minute an f1 team principal's role is a blend of business ceo and team coach and in this video i'll introduce you to the principles of the current 10 f1 teams they range in age from 42 to 64 years all a european with two austrians two brits and two french so let's kick off with torga christian wolff principal and ceo of mercedes-benz he's 48 years of age born in vienna austria erased in formula ford in his early years in fact before that i found a story that he actually sold candles to street protesters and made some money doing that so he's always been entrepreneurial back to his racing he did win the category that he was in in the 1994 24 hours nurburgring but he had limited success in racing so he turned his attention to management and in 2009 he bought a share in the williams formula one team in 2013 four years later he left to become an executive director at mercedes and currently is a shareholder with a 30 stake 10 percent was in nikki louder's hands and the remaining 60 was with mercedes-benz but get this since 2014 under toto mercedes won 93 of 125 races they'd taken 98 of 125 poles 60 front row lockouts and they won two out of every three races they are impressive stance unlike most of the other team principles he mostly sits inside the mercedes garage during sessions instead of out on the pit wall he's got a solid relationship with both of his drivers and many say he's the key to lewis remaining at mercedes-benz he lives with his second wife scottish racer susie wolf they have homes in england and switzerland he has a young son with susie and two children from his first marriage and he speaks fluent german english french italian and polish he is the top dog in the paddock at the moment in terms of performance nothing can get past mercedes-benz and he is at the head of that team next up franz tost he's another x driver principal at alfa toweri he competed in formula ford like toto and f3 and in fact he looked after ralph schumacher's career for a period he's 64 years of age he's the oldest team principal in the paddock he's from trins in austria and he's been at alpha terry for 14 years kicking off back in 2006. he's one of the lesser known team principals just gets things done in the background certainly doesn't get the exposure of the big three he keeps a low profile in the paddock he's genial and happy and i'm happy to say that i often get a smile when he walks towards me which is nice photographically podiums have been rare at alfa terry they've been just three but i was there for the most recent one when pierre gasly managed to secure second place in that exciting brazilian gp now that was the happiest i've ever seen him in the paddock after the race reunited with his young french driver france tossed from alpha tauri our only female team principal is of course claire williams officially deputy team principal of williams formula one team but effectively she runs it day to day for the time being anyway after of course saying that the team would never be sold it has been to a u.s backed private investment firm she's 44 years of age from windsor in england graduated from newcastle university in 1999 with a degree in politics but walked straight into the press officer role at silverstone racing circuit in 2002 she went from silverstone to the williams f1 team where she was the team's communications officer in 2010 she became head of communications for the team and in 2011 director of marketing and comms and when her father frank williams stepped down from the board in march 2012 she became the williams family representative on the board in 2013 she was appointed deputy team principal which is of course her current role she's married to mark harris got married in 2018 he proposed at home with a haribo ring why not a real ring well she was eight months pregnant so they had to wait until after their boy nathaniel was born in october 2017 before sorting out a proper ring and she was appointed an obe in the 2016 birthday honours list for her services to f1 here's another obe recipient christian horner well christian edward johnston horner aged 46 from leamington spa in warwickshire england he was awarded his obe in the 2013 birthday honours for services to motorsport he has a racing past he has competed in carts formula renault british formula two and three and formula three thousand but he retired from driving at twenty five like toto to focus on team management he bought a share in arden which was racing in f-3000 after spending a year with the team now after some years in f3000 he landed the plum roll at red bull in 2005. now at the time he was the youngest team principal in the paddock he's a tough taskmaster though you need to be at the top of your game to work under him he's a street operator well-dressed not great mates though with cyril ebitable and of course if you've seen the netflix drive to survive you'll know exactly what i'm talking about there he's married to a spice girl jerry halliwell that happened back in 2015 they have two children and a christian has a seven-year-old daughter from a previous relationship with beverly allen he's the most prominent team principal on instagram he has some i think 730 000 followers he's a great front man for red bull and interestingly a coventry city football supporter mattia bernardo is up next born in november 1969 that makes him 51 he was born in lausanne switzerland and if you have never been to lausanne if you go you must go and see the olympic museum i went there last year absolutely stunning great time out but i digress getting back to matia he landed the plum roll of ferrari team principal in january 2019. he on the back of maurizio aretha bene being axed he holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a masters in motor vehicle engineering very intelligent man he's a long time ferrari man started there in 1995 and some what is that 18 years later he became the head of engineering before becoming chief technical officer three years later replacing james allison who went on to mercedes i've photographed him in joyous times here he is with charles after his second race win in monza sad times a week prior when the f1 community honored antoine uber and i've seen the playful side of him in silverstone last year tickling charles in the paddock in this series of shots at present though he's got his work cut out for him with a car that is clearly struggling for performance and a four-time world champion leaving the team at the end of the year but when it comes to f1 there's probably no more prestigious team principal position than ferrari team principal but how long will he last ferrari are ruthless and they expect results we're halfway and if you're in business and would like to sharpen up your cruise skills head to kennedy.com the world's best online staff training platform hundreds of short sharp training videos covering everything from handling angry customers to staying safe under covert 19 kennedy.com there's a free trial guntersteiner team principal at haas now i've done a complete video on quintin you can find the links in the description below but he's 55 years of age from murano south tyrol in italy he's married to gertrude with one child greta in short he's the most colorful team principal in the paddock and one of the great f1 personalities and if you've seen the netflix drive to survive series you know that he swears a little bit and he wears his heart on his sleeve i think that's really what people love to see he spent 15 years from 1986 in rallying from 2001 to 2003 he was with jaguar f1 as the managing director in 2005 he worked for red bull under christian horner as technical operations director and then a year later they moved him to the us as technical director at red bull's nascar team and he spent a couple of years there and he's not on instagram although a lot of people think this is him it's not this is a fan account number seven on my list is ottmar saffnow 56 years of age team principal of racing point born in semlac romania but moved to detroit at the age of seven he began his career at the ford motor company he tried his hand at racing in formula ford in 91 gave that away in 95 after crashing while trying to qualify for an indianapolis 500 supporting feature race he joined force india october 2009 no doubt his toughest time was when the team ran into financial problems in 2018. the team emerged as racing point and have a look at them this year brighter prospects under i like fred vasseur he's the team principal of alfa romeo and in fact he's also the md and the ceo of the team he wears three hats he's 52 years of age from dravea in france married with at least one son julian whom i photographed with him at one of the races last year he earned a degree in aeronautical techniques and automotive engineering in 1996 and then he founded two racing teams asm and art between them they notched up 29 titles the list of drivers who've driven under fred's watchful eye include roma grosjean paul deresta lewis hamilton sebastian vettel two nicos two estebans one valtteri and most recently charles leclerc he entered f1 in 2016 as team principal of renault did two years with salva 17 and 18 and of course now he's at alfa romeo fred has a dry sense of humor good guy and i particularly like this funny pick i shot of him in singapore now he's working alongside a great in kimi raikkonen well liked by many no obvious friction gets along with everybody a second last team principle in this series is cyril ubitabal he's the youngest at 42 years of age he's french has an engineering background and i mentioned earlier on his uncomfortable interactions with christian horner on the netflix drive to the 5 series if you haven't seen it you want to watch it in 2013 he became the team principal at caterham and then about halfway through 2014 he went across as md of renault sport f1 cool guy designer stubble like so many in f1 but we'll need to show some results soon to keep the board happy and finally over at mclaren andreas seidel is the team principal the 44 year old german took over running the team in may last year and in just over a year he's done a remarkable job of turning mclaren completely around they finished fourth in the constructors championship last year but over the previous four years they averaged just seventh under eric booyah's tenure andreas spent nearly a decade in f1 starting as an engineer with williams from 2000 to 2005 then was sauber until 2009 where he had his first win when robert kubitsa won in canada in 2008. another notable win for andreas was in 2015 when as team principal for porsche he celebrated a le mans 24-hour victory with nico hulkenberg behind the wheel as one of the three drivers that was nico's most recent podium finish now you do see him pop up a lot in the le monde doco on amazon and i would urge you to go and watch that a fascinating view he's made a huge difference to the team and with daniel ricardo joining mclaren in 2021 and lando norris continuing to improve he'll be expecting even greater results do you have a favorite team principal i'll be honest mine's gunter i love him i think he's colorful he says what he thinks he wears his heart on his sleeve and he's great for the sport yeah some people will get upset with his language but yeah i love it if you've liked the video hit the like button and if you haven't subscribed i invite you to do that and of course if you'd like notifications of future videos the bell button is the thing to press you can order your f1 driver photo books and canvas prints at kimmelman.com all of my images are available at prostarpix.com and for my best images head to instagram at kimilman thank you for watching and stay passionate thanks for waiting

Channel: Kym Illman

Views: 140,673

Keywords: formula 1, f1, team principals, red bull racing, mercedes benz, lewis hamilton, scuderia ferrari, formula one team principal, f1 toto wolff, toto wolff, christian horner, mattia binottoeam, f1 christian horner, f1 mattia binotto, f1 principals, f1 teams, f1 team owners, who runs f1, Guenther Steiner, f1 guenther steiner, haas team principal, red bull racing team principal, f1 team principal salary, f1 team principal pay, f1 team principal ferrari, mercedes team principal

Id: 1eUHMVhVHYo

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 26 2020