
Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley gave high praise for team principal Fred Vasseur, saying he would be one of the few people he would consider working for in the paddock today.
Smedley left the team side of Formula 1 in 2019 after a stint at Williams, moving into data roles with Formula 1 itself and co-founded a karting league, though he revealed he still receives offers from the paddock to this day.
Former Ferrari engineer ‘would get on well’ working with Fred Vasseur
Smedley used to act as race engineer for Felipe Massa at Ferrari before moving into the role of head of vehicle performance at Williams, and admitted he was “totally clear” that he wanted to move away from that side of Formula 1 at the time he left the Grove-based team, with his career subsequently taking him to Formula 1 itself and looking to help young racers make it onto the motorsport ladder.
His current role as CEO with the F.A.T Karting League aims to “democratise” grassroots motorsport, looking at helping to make karting more accessible for young racers.
Smedley acknowledged offers still come his way from the paddock, though, and while he did not confirm where those came from, he was asked about the progress his former team have made under Vasseur’s leadership.
Having got to know him away from the circuit, Smedley explained why the Ferrari team boss would be one of the few people he would consider working for in a paddock role, given his style of leadership.
“I like Fred, I’ve got a lot of time for Fred and for what he’s doing,” Smedley said on the Red Flags podcast.
“You know, my barometer in Formula 1, I’m still – I don’t know what you call it, fortunate, unfortunate enough – to still get offers from Formula 1 teams, and my barometer is always: Would I go and work for them?
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“When I look at someone and I think: ‘Would I go and work for that?’ And actually, there’s not many people who I would, but Fred is one of them.
“Fred is somebody who I’d go and work with because I think, I know Fred socially, but I think we would get on well in a work environment.
“He’s very intelligent, but he’s also very disarming, and I think that’s a good quality to have in a top manager in a pressure cooker environment like that, because he’s not piling more pressure on.
“You don’t need pressure, right? The top people in Formula 1, the people who succeed in Formula 1, you don’t need any more pressure adding on, thank you very much.
“You’re already in this ridiculously pressuring environment, and if you are a successful person in Formula 1, there will be no stronger critic of you and your work than than you yourself, right?
“So you don’t need anybody from the outside putting any more pressure on – that’s just negativity.
“And I think Fred has done a good job in doing that and demonstrating that as well and looking after people, because you can’t just say it as well – you’ve got to physically do it.
“Fred’s good at looking after his people, taking the flak, but he’s very intelligent, and he knows what is needed to make a successful Formula 1 [team], and you’d be surprised that not every team principal does know what is needed to make a successful Formula 1 team, by the way, but Fred is one of them.”
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