Haas appoint F1’s first female race engineer amid huge restructure
Laura Muller earns historic promotion to become F1's first female race engineer at Haas.
Haas have appointed Laura Muller as the first female race engineer in F1.
Muller, who joined the American outfit in 2022, will work with new signing Esteban Ocon during the 2025 season following his switch from Alpine.
The 33-year-old German’s promotion from performance engineer marks a landmark moment for F1.
"It's not like I chose Laura because she's female. We just don't care - nationality, gender, doesn't matter,” Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu said.
"What matters is work, how you fit into the team, how you can maximise the performance - and Ronan and Laura I believe happen to be the best choice."
Meanwhile, Ronan O’Hare will be F1 rookie Oliver Bearman’s race engineer. O’Hare previously worked as a performance engineer for Williams and the NIO Formula E team, as well as carrying out engineering roles for Racing Bulls and Mercedes.
Haas’ first head of race strategy will also be a woman - Carine Cridelich, who will start the position on 1 March after leaving her current post at Racing Bulls.
As part of the major alteration to race team staff organisation ahead of the new campaign, Haas have also brought in ex-Toyota, Sauber and Marussia engineer Francesco Nenci as chief race engineer.
Nenci most recently worked at Audi’s Dakar Rally programme.
This position was previously held by Komatsu before he replaced Guenther Steiner as team principal last year.
Mark Lowe has been promoted from operations team manager to sporting director.
Explaining the decision to shake-up Haas’ team, Komatsu said: “I felt the trackside team was one of the weakest areas last year, and the more the car became competitive that exposed it more.
"Towards the end of the year we had the fifth-fastest car. But in terms of execution, we should have finished P6 [in the constructors' championship] but we didn’t.
"Part of it was we left too many points on the table from the trackside operation. So really needed a step-up.”
Haas finished seventh in last year’s constructors’ championship, scoring 58 points. They had looked on course to take sixth before a late-season surge from Alpine.
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