Last year, I had the pleasure of working for the Mercedes Formula One team in their purchasing and logistics department. My main role was to buy engine parts for all eight of our cars on the track in time for races each weekend, as well as to help sort the transportation of our two Mercedes cars to the next race.

My job was very busy with full 12 hour working days from 7.30am until 7.30pm and so it was not for the faint hearted. Essentially you had to get your job done no matter what, so if your engine parts weren’t arriving on time or you hadn’t sorted your logistics section for the upcoming race you would have to stay and work late or at weekends in order to get your job sorted.

Working in Formula One was difficult but very rewarding. Watching our cars crash after working hard staying late for 2 solid weeks buying all of their engine parts in time would always be devastating as you would literally be watching all of your hard work get crushed right in front of you. Coming in on a Monday morning after a race would always be either exciting or dreadful depending on the race result that weekend, because if one of the eight cars had crashed or had an engine failure I knew I would have a lot of work to do that week.

Despite this, I was lucky to celebrate many triumphs such as podium wins and the successful launching of our 2026 power units. Any time a Mercedes, McLaren, Aston Martin or Williams car placed with a podium position we could celebrate our hard work because we made the engines for that car. Our celebrations would include free glasses of champagne and a victory whole company meeting every Monday after a race filled with cheers and excitement.

The devastations on the other hand, after poor result weekends and big car crashes resulted in a large company wide meeting filled with heartbreak and gloom. The lows and highs of working for such a great Formula One team were prominent because the whole company's monthly bonus relied on how well two drivers performed.

Unlike a placement with a regular company, a placement in Formula One places you right into the heart of a team where collaboration is the main answer. The importance of getting your job done in order for the team to race was so much more significant than I ever would’ve realised before I started working.

On one occasion for example, we had an upcoming race in Monza and my engine seals that I was in charge of were running late and hadn’t arrived in time for the car shipment to Italy. Because of this, I had to drive down to Plymouth in the company car straight away to pick up three tiny singular seals and then drive to the airport to fly to Italy to drop them off eight hours before testing started on Friday.

"My main role was to buy engine parts for all eight of our cars on the track in time for races each weekend"

1000 employees in Mercedes were relying on my three seals to get to Italy in order for us to be able to race that weekend. Many placement companies do not give such big tasks and responsibilities to placement or grad students, however in Formula One everyone’s role matters and everyone’s role can make or break whether or not we can race that weekend.

The stress of parts arriving in time was always high for the department as a whole because often enough we would have issues where suppliers would deliver items a day late, so problem solving was incredibly important. This would all feel worth it in the end when we would have our trophy and medal presentations. 

Day to day life

There is so much I can go into about what would happen in a week because we were just so busy, but to condense it down we would start the week off with a team meeting for the whole company to analyse the race weekend. This would either be fun with medals and champagne and winners podium one t-shirts, or depressing and serious meetings.

We would all gather for breakfast at 10.30am every day for half an hour which was buffet style and £1 so very cheap! Everyone would then all go to their departments so for me that would mean time on my computer calling and replying to my suppliers to make sure my parts were arriving on time.

We would then have four more meetings throughout the day with big spreadsheets that we would have to fill out daily updating everyone on the process of our specific parts. At any one time I personally would be in charge of over 15,000 components coming in and £2 million of engine parts, so I had a lot to fill out on the spreadsheets.

"In Formula One everyone’s role matters and everyone’s role can make or break whether or not we can race that weekend"

In between meetings and computer time we would have lunch and dinner which again were really cheap (£2 per meal). The food on a Friday would be themed to the country of the hosting upcoming race which was always my favourite part. We would end the day with a meeting between project planners, purchasing and engineers to update everyone on parts coming in and any issues.

Twice a week in the afternoons we would have department gym classes in the on-site gym such as dance, boxing, weights or spin classes. These were always a great way to destress and to get away from your computer. A fond memory I have of department gym classes involved us learning the dance to Thriller with our boss. Many other companies wouldn't be as relaxed with the relationship between bosses and their employees however because in Mercedes we have to work as a team, they think it is important for us all to do bonding activities each week.

On a Sunday if there was a race on you could bring up to five guests into the factory to come and watch the race on the big screams with your fellow team mates. This was great fun because it gave me the chance to tour my friends and family around the factory as well as watch and celebrate with my colleagues when our cars did well. During a race you would hear a lot of shouting and a lot of excitement all in one and the atmosphere would be incredible every race Sunday. 

"The food on a Friday would be themed to the country of the hosting upcoming race which was always my favourite part."

Questions people always ask me about my placement: 

How many times did you meet the drivers?

Everyone always asks me this! The drivers aren’t in the factory a lot because they’re always jet setting around the world for races, however during my placement year we have had Lewis Hamilton visit five times and George Russell visit three times. Toto Wolf would actually be a regular in our meetings and would turn up to our end of day department meeting every three weeks to make sure everything was in order. We had the McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams drivers in once to thank us for building their engines at the end of the 2023 season which was a nice touch. 

How did you get a job in Formula One? 

Again, everyone always asks me this and straight away presume that I got this job because of connections. In actual fact I know no one in Formula One and so I got the job simply from applying and putting a lot of effort into my project presentation at my interview to prove that I would be the best candidate.

I study Politics and International Relations so it always shocks everyone that I managed to get a role in the team considering I don’t take a STEM subject. Although there are a lot of engineers in the company, there are also other roles for those who are not engineers. Anyone who studies Finance or Economics for example could work in the finance department organising the strict F1 budget.

A day in Charlotte's life at Queen's!

There are many exciting roles in events, marketing and HR that involve advertising everything that Lewis and George do. To work in my department in purchasing you could essentially do any degree as long as you can prove that you will be hard working and will get everything sorted on time.

There are also many roles in transport and logistics which again you can get with any degree which entail organising the travel of the car, the drivers and the pit stop crew between races which is very interesting. For those who study engineering, an actual engineering role is difficult to get so the best tip would be to join Formula student at Queen's because all of the Formula one teams like to recruit talent from Formula student events. 

Would you do it again? 

Yes I would, but maybe in a different department and for a different team. I have loved working for Mercedes however I would like to try working for another team purely based on the location of the Mercedes factories. I was based in Brixworth in Northampton and personally would prefer to be based closer to Oxford like the rest of the British teams are.

It would also be interesting to see the drive other teams have to compare. My ideal Formula One job would actually be in events and marketing but now I have worked in purchasing and logistics I have experience on my CV to get into a grad scheme for another team. Luckily once you get a job in F1 the job offers will keep rolling in from other teams!

Find out more about Formula student at Queen's

Since finishing my placement year I have already received job offers from every F1 team other than Ferrari and Red Bull. This is incredible considering I haven’t applied to a single job, they have all contacted me and approached me which makes going back into F1 through a grad scheme even easier. 

Is the team full of older engineers?

Surprisingly, I can’t speak for the other teams but Mercedes has a high rate of young staff. All of the department heads were 35 or under which felt strange considering at banks and consultancy firms etc they would usually be over 40.

The departments were full of under 25 year old employees, so placement and graduate students with very few employees over 35. This made the work culture a lot more fun because there were 50 placement students and 150 graduate students which meant that we could host lots of events together.

Every week there would be new activities on for all of us on the placement or grad schemes to get together such as pub nights, work BBQs, work dinners out, concerts and parties. We had a department sports league after work on a Tuesday to play hockey or football against other departments and also had clubs on a Saturday such as watersports which many employees attended.

The head of events would host weekend activities such as Mercedes paint-balling and air soft or the company wide Go Karting “Find the next Lewis Hamilton” all of which were always popular. Don’t let the idea of the workplace being filled with older men put you off because I can assure you there are more young people running the team than there are older. 

Overall, my advice to those wanting to go into Formula One in the future is to just apply even if you don’t think your degree would be useful. I applied to Mercedes on the small off chance and here I am a year later happier than ever that I decided to apply.

Get involved in Formula student and other potential graduate events and schemes that all of the teams host because they always give job offers on event days even if you haven’t applied. I would suggest that you consider applying to random departments because as soon as you have a one year contract in one part of Formula One, you’re set in your career to transfer over to your desired department.

For example, many engineers worked in purchasing alongside me and then transferred to the build departments after they had completed their year long contract because once you start working for the team they want to retain you. For females especially I would recommend joining the “Women in Motorsports” and the “Girls in Formula One” Facebook groups because they host events and post for job openings for females to get into the teams which are always useful.

In general, although it is good to know things about F1 before getting into the industry, in your interviews the leaders do not want to hear a list of all the information you know about F1 because they most likely already know it all themselves. Instead they are looking for people who would think out of the box for new designs for the cars to work on improvements and so want to see people helping to suggest new ideas in the group interviews, even if it is unrelated to F1.

Finally, remember to never let one job rejection put you off applying. There are many teams to apply to so apply to them all for lots of different roles to see what you get, because once you’re into a department in a team it is so easy to stay in F1 and to change teams and departments. 

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Charlotte Jennings  Politics and International Relations | Undergraduate Student | London, England I'm a Politics and International Relations student in my second year at Queen's. I am from London and currently live in student housing but lived in Elms BT9 last year. I love to be a busy person and am a member of multiple societies and teams at Queen's. I am also undertaking a charitable project at Queen's called the Zambia project where we host fundraisers in order to collect money and aid for our missionary trip to Zambia. In my spare time I teach water sports in Bangor and so far I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Belfast even though it is very different to London. I would highly recommend the university to anyone as I have had the best experience here so far and have fallen in love with this country.