Laura Mueller: F1's first female engineer breaks gender barriers

Laura Mueller is making history as the first female race engineer in F1.

Ms. Laura Mueller, the first female engineer in the 75-year history of Formula 1 racing, stands next to a racing athlete of this tournament - Photo: Formula1

From dreaming of racing alongside the legendary Michael Schumacher to becoming the first female race engineer in the 75-year history of Formula 1 (F1), Laura Mueller is rewriting gender stereotypes in a long-standing male-dominated environment.

Laura Mueller and her historic journey to F1?

If you look at the number of female engineers we have in the office, it's definitely more than before. But I didn't choose Laura because she's female. We don't care about nationality, gender - it really doesn't matter because what matters is the job. How you can integrate into the team, how you can maximize performance.

Mr. KOMATSU told the Formula 1 racing website

Laura Mueller's impressive effort

As Haas driver Esteban Ocon (USA) zoomed around Albert Park in the 2025 season, a female voice came over the radio: "Box, box." It was Laura Mueller, the 33-year-old German race engineer for Haas, who was making history as the first female race engineer in F1, acting as a vital link between the driver and the team.

Mueller's promotion not only marks a personal milestone but also a major step forward in the journey to gender equality in the world's most prestigious speed sport.

With a bachelor’s and master’s degree in automotive engineering from the prestigious Technical University of Munich, Laura Mueller once dreamed of becoming an F1 racer and racing against the legendary Michael Schumacher. However, fate took her down a different path that was no less admirable.

According to Forbes magazine, before coming to Haas in 2022, Ms. Mueller has accumulated impressive experience from many different racing environments.

She started her career as an intern at Phoenix Racing, focusing on data and driver analysis.

She then became an engineer in Formula Renault 2.0 (a junior racing series, a stepping stone to F1) with Josef Kaufmann Racing (a German team that has trained many young talents). Then she went to Brazil to work as a data engineer at Hero Motorsport (an Indian team) for racer Lucas di Grassi (a former Brazilian F1 racer who later became successful in the electric car racing series Formula E).

“She’s a very determined person,” Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu told the F1 website. “Her work ethic is really good.” Mueller’s journey also included data and performance engineering positions at other teams and races.

“What she's really good at is when she sees a problem, she digs deep and doesn't stop at the first answer,” Mr. Komatsu emphasized.

"Some people, when they find the first answer, often stop there. They are satisfied and think: 'Great, I found the solution, now I can move on to something else'.

But Laura is different - she has such an excellent working method that when she finds the initial solution, she realizes that it is only the beginning.

Each answer usually opens up 10 new questions to be answered, and she is willing to dig into each one,” Komatsu told Formula1.com.

Breaking gender barriers

Ms Mueller's rise is particularly notable in the F1 environment, where female engineers are still rare.

According to the 2023 pay gap report, women hold just 7% of engineering positions at McLaren despite making up nearly a fifth of the total workforce.

Meanwhile, the rate at Mercedes is 10%, and at Williams it is 8.7%. These figures are significantly lower than the average of 15.7% across the national engineering industry, according to the Financial Times .

“When you can’t see other women in that space, it’s hard to envision yourself there,” Amelia Lewis, performance engineer at McLaren, told the Financial Times .

Like Ms Mueller, Ms Hannah Schmitz, one of the sport's most prominent female engineers, who holds the position of chief strategy engineer at Red Bull, recalls that when she first joined the Milton Keynes team 16 years ago, she was just one of five women in the entire design department.

Schmitz sees that disparity as “motivating”: “If someone tells me I can’t do something, I definitely want to do it,” she recalls.

In her view, the main barriers for female F1 engineers remain at the “lower levels” – at the education and entry level, with a lack of quality female candidates wanting to enter the field.

This observation is also reinforced by the experience of Bernadette Collins, another former F1 engineer and now a commentator for Sky Sports .

Mrs Collins recalls a memorable incident when she revealed her profession to ordinary people in a pub.

When she shared that she worked as a gearbox engineer for the prestigious McLaren team, their reaction was: “I don’t think that’s a woman’s job.” The irony is, as she notes, “I never get that reaction in a professional office environment.”

Alongside the appointment of Laura Mueller, Haas has also recruited Carine Cridelich as head of strategy – another key role within the team.

The fact that another woman has been entrusted with this important responsibility further confirms the positive trend in recognizing and promoting female talent in the F1 environment, which was once considered a male-dominated field.

Read more Back to Topics

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/laura-mueller-nu-ky-su-dau-tien-cua-giai-dua-xe-f1-pha-vo-rao-can-gioi-20250322103143905.htm