How two ex-Ferrari top F1 engineers share duties at Mercedes

Last summer, for the first time in 23 years, Simone Resta had the opportunity to attend to his garden.

Not that this was a priority, since Resta had a more pressing task ahead: arranging a move to the UK, where he was to join Mercedes as strategic development director. That move was announced in March last year, just two months after he returned to Maranello from a secondment at Haas.

Resta began work at Mercedes in October and his job title was subsequently revised to ‘deputy technical director’, a change which mistakenly aroused much excitement among those who mine LinkedIn for ‘news’ during the off-season. His direct boss is James Allison, making this a reunion of sorts since they worked together at Ferrari during Allison’s two previous stints in Maranello.

In 2000 Allison moved to Ferrari in the then-new role of trackside aerodynamicist after falling out of favour at Benetton.

He moved back to Enstone under a new ownership regime as deputy technical director in 2005 but had enjoyed the Italian way of life, such that he went back to Ferrari in 2013, remaining there for three years until he returned to the UK after his wife passed away unexpectedly.

Resta was a long-time Ferrari man, joining in 2013 as a junior designer and working his way up the ranks before being seconded to partner teams, first Sauber and then Haas, as technical director. While taking a deputy role could be read as a step down, Mercedes is a much larger organization so a thicker layer of management is required.

“First of all, my job is to be in close contact with James and with the entire technical group,” Resta said in an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com Italy. “James is the technical director, I am his deputy, and in some ways we have divided the tasks; he has the overall vision of the entire technical part and focuses mainly on the 2026 project, while I am dedicating myself to 2025, so more on short- or medium-term things, but also on longer-term strategic ones.

“I am referring to things that go beyond next year in terms of developing skills and technical infrastructures. It is about adapting all work processes to the evolution of F1.”

Resta wasn’t expected to start work at Mercedes until the beginning of 2025, but it’s understood that an arrangement was reached between Brackley and Maranello last summer over the gardening leave period of performance director Loic Serra, who was recruited from Mercedes by Ferrari in the middle of 2023. Until that point, Mercedes had intended to keep Serra attending to his petunias until his contract expired this January.

Instead, both men were able to take up their new positions last October. Allison is believed to rate Resta highly.

“James and I have a great working relationship, and we divide our tasks efficiently,” said Resta. “I focus more on the overall car development and the integration of new technologies, while James is key in leading the design and aerodynamics teams.

“The way we approach our roles at Mercedes is very complementary. Our past experience at Ferrari gives us a strong base, and we know how to work together to tackle any challenge.

“We met at the beginning of the 2000s, when I was following the mechanical part of Ferrari and he was taking care of the aerodynamics on the track. Then we left each other and met again at the end of 2013 when, having returned to Ferrari, he was technical director and I became the chief designer: I must say that we worked well together.

“I think there is great mutual respect: he is a great person and a great technician. For me it is an honour to work with him.”