Laura Muller will become the first female race engineer in Formula One history after being promoted into the role by Haas ahead of the 2025 season.
Muller, 33, will work with new driver signing Esteban Ocon, who has joined Haas from Alpine as part of an all-new driver line-up alongside Oliver Bearman.
The race engineer is primed with overseeing a driver’s race weekend, serving as the primary point of contact over the radio that can be heard on broadcasts as well as helping make calls on strategy, effectively managing a driver’s race.
Muller and Ocon started working together at the end-of-season test at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi last year when he made an early switch across to Haas.
As part of a wider internal reshuffle at Haas for the 2025 season, the team confirmed on Tuesday that Muller would be taking over as Ocon’s race engineer.
While a number of women have enjoyed senior roles within F1 teams in recent years, including Red Bull principal strategist Hannah Schmitz, plus former race strategists Ruth Buscombe and Bernie Collins at Sauber and Aston Martin respectively, Muller will be the first female race engineer in the 75-year history of the sport.
Muller will work with Ocon (Haas F1 Team)
Muller first worked as a race engineer in the European Le Mans Series, a sportscar championship, with the DragonSpeed team in 2020 that included its entry to the famed 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
After building up her experience across sportscars with DragonSpeed, Abt Sportsline in the German DTM series and the Porsche-backed Manthey Racing team, Muller moved into F1 with Haas in 2022, becoming a performance engineer.
Muller’s promotion comes amid a number of internal changes at Haas after its first full winter under team principal Ayao Komatsu, who took over from Gunther Steiner last January.
This includes the appointment of Carine Cridelich as its head of strategy following her stint as the senior race strategy engineer at Racing Bulls, as well as naming Mark Lowe as its new sporting director.
Bearman, who raced twice for Haas last year as a stand-in for Kevin Magnussen, will have former performance engineer Ronan O’Hare as his race engineer for this season.
Ocon and Bearman have already completed some mileage for Haas this year, taking part in the team’s first private test running at Jerez in Spain using a 2023 car last week to help them get up to speed ahead of the new season.
Haas finished seventh in last year’s constructors’ championship, marking its highest finish in the F1 standings since 2018.
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(Top photo: Haas F1 Team)
