Wolff explains D’Ambrosio’s new F1 role at Mercedes 

The Belgian, who raced for the Virgin team in 2011 and made a one-off appearance for Lotus at the 2012 Italian Grand Prix, was spotted sitting alongside Mercedes boss Wolff during pre-season testing and the season opener in Bahrain. 

D’Ambrosio was also present at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, where he was wearing official Mercedes team kit for the first time. 

The 37-year-old will largely be involved with Mercedes’ young driver programme, taking over the responsibility previously held by James Vowles, who left to become Williams’ team principal at the start of the year. 

“He's looking after the young driver programme in very close cooperation with Gwen [Lagrue, Mercedes driver development advisor], who has been doing it very successfully over the last few years,” Wolff explained in Jeddah. 

“With Gwen’s team we are looking at grassroots motorsports from the early stages of go-karts, and this is where Gwen is very active, and he was the one working with James.

“And now within the Brackley structure it’s Jerome who has taken that over, and he's looking at things and there's plenty of plenty of scope with what James did beyond the strategy work. So I see Jerome growing in the organisation, but at this stage, that's his area.”

Prior to joining Mercedes, D’Ambrosio acted as a Formula E team boss at Venturi, where he worked closely with Susie Wolff. 

Wolff hinted that D’Ambrosio may end up taking on an expanded role within Mercedes in the future.

“I have known Jerome a long time, because back in the day when he was in Renault Driver Development, I thought about managing him,” Wolff said.

“So it's 15 or 20 years ago, and then we had a look again at him when he when he dropped out of the programme. So I've known him as a racing driver, but never from the human standpoint, and never from the managerial side.

“And I think when Susie offered him the option to jump out of the cockpit into a management role, he took it with both hands and they were quite a good competitive duo, and Jerome led it into another year and finished second in the Formula E championship.

“I think he has the know-how of having been a racing driver at a very high level. He was a go-karting world champion. He's been in F1, and on the other side, the skills as a manager.

“So where that will lead him is a question – today it’s at a very early stage. He is just coming in in the driver development part and administrative functions. And we shall see where that goes.”