Haas has named Laura Mueller as a track engineer, making her the first woman to hold this role. The American team continues to restructure its internal organization, and this appointment is an important step forward.
The new head of Haas strategy will also be a woman: Carine Cridelich, coming from Racing Bulls, will start full-time on March 1, 2025.
Laura Mueller will work with Esteban Ocon, who was hired by the team last year under the leadership of Ayao Komatsu. Ollie Bearman, on the other hand, will collaborate with Ronan O’Hare, a former performance engineer promoted to track engineer.
The Haas team principal explained the reasoning behind this decision: “I didn’t choose Laura because she’s a woman. We simply don’t care about that: nationality, gender, they don’t matter. What matters is the work, how well you integrate into the team, and how you maximize performance. And I believe Ronan and Laura are the best choice.”
Haas is pushing for greater inclusivity, and in recent years we’ve seen more and more women take roles behind the pit wall. Among them, it’s impossible not to mention Hannah Schmitz, strategic engineer at Red Bull, as well as Ruth Buscombe and Bernie Collins, who previously worked at Sauber and Aston Martin, respectively.
Ayao Komatsu, who took over Haas at the beginning of the 2024 season, stated that he wanted to make some changes to the team’s internal structure after identifying weaknesses. In particular, he focused on roles related to race management.
The new head race engineer is Francesco Nenci, who recently worked on Audi’s Dakar Rally program and has experience in F1 with Sauber and Toyota. Mark Lowe, former head of Haas’s operational team, will be the sporting director.
“I felt that the track team was one of the weakest areas last year,” Ayao Komatsu explained. “By the end of the year, we had the fifth-fastest car. In terms of execution, we should have finished P6 [in the Constructors’ Championship], but we didn’t manage to do that. We really needed to take a step forward.” – the Haas team principal concluded.
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