Taking a Formula One car from concept to successful competition means rigorously testing every area of design, not just for performance but to ensure components are structurally sound and safe to race. Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team R&D Engineer Andrew Evans explains how it's done, what it takes to pursue a career in this field and why he just wants to break things.
Formula One cars are extreme by nature. In every area, boundaries are pushed to make the car lighter, faster, more agile, but while those boundaries might be somewhat elastic in the conceptual world, the reality of physically hurling a machine around a track at up to 300km/h is altogether more harsh and rigid.
Testing where the limits lie is the work of the team's R&D Engineers, specialists who not only evaluate designs for effectiveness but also for structural integrity and safety.
For Aston Martin Aramco R&D Engineer Andrew Evans that means going "above and beyond" a simple job description and pulling out all the stops to build the fastest car possible.
You will break stuff
"The simplest way to explain what an R&D engineer does is that we try to break things! An R&D Engineer will design rigs to test chassis and bodywork components of the car – front wings, rear wings, noses, floors, chassis. They will also run the tests, process the data, send out the reports and provide feedback to the rest of the design office about where improvements can be made, whether the components are up to scratch and whether they're safe to go on the car.
"The car at the start of the season is not the same as the one at the end. There are many updates that come along and as an R&D Engineer it's up to you to provide the test specs to evaluate their effectiveness; not from an aero perspective – that's wind tunnel and CFD (computational fluid dynamics) – but from a structural perspective. It's about making sure the components are going to be safe and strong enough to withstand the immense forces and stresses that an F1 car is subjected to."
You've got to be able to do it all
"R&D is one of the broadest departments because it's involved in the design side and the servicing side of the components when they come back. If you're in R&D, it's very varied: so, it's a case of being able to do the CAD (computer-aided design), understanding the principles of design – akin to a typical mechanical engineering role – but then also being able to write code in Python or create spreadsheets and graphs in Excel. There's a huge amount of variety in the role.
"And that's why when we're looking for R&D engineers to join us, we're looking for people who can do it all. For example, you often get candidates who are really good at the CAD side of things, but they might have no experience of coding or running a test. Of course, we can train and develop new recruits but if you can do both it's a real advantage."
One of the best things I did to prepare myself for a job in Formula One was to join my university's Formula Student team. It's the reason I'm here now.
Andrew Evans, R&D Engineer
Your degree will only take you so far
"One of the best things I did to prepare myself for a job in Formula One was to join my university's Formula Student team. It's the reason I'm here now. The people I met, the things I learnt, the opportunities that opened up – it inspired me to want to pursue a career in F1 and put me in touch with people who have worked in sport. I think I learnt more from Formula Student than I did from my degree!
"A degree is important, but I learnt so much more from physically working on a car, designing components, seeing how they performed on track when we were testing. I do think it's about getting involved, not saying no to things, just putting yourself out there. I sacrificed a lot of my time to gain practical experience, but it got me where I needed to be to have this job."
You've got to be adaptable
"The ideal candidate to work in R&D is someone who can do all of it! I think I'm quite fortunate, having started off in R&D as a placement, so before I got too focused on a specific area within the department, I was able to broaden my skill set.
"I may not be as good at doing surfacing as somebody who works in aero and I'm not a software engineer, but I have enough knowledge and experience of both that enable me to do my job to a good level. Having that broad understanding of things like aerodynamics and software engineering is really useful for a career in R&D."
Having that competitiveness inside you is what gives you the motivation to want to make the car go faster, to want to win races.
Andrew Evans, R&D Engineer
You need to be a pragmatist
"The key quality for any good R&D Engineer is to be pragmatic, and doing the very best with what you have is essential for success. You've got to recognise what resources you have available and how best to use them.
"Time is the biggest limiting factor. There are only so many Grands Prix a year, and only so long between each one, plus there's a new car every year, so we can't spend three years developing the car to be as good as possible. Academia is the place to go for that, or aerospace, where you can spend five or 10 years working on something, and you still might not even see it come to fruition."
And you need to have a competitive streak
"Having that competitiveness inside you is what gives you the motivation to want to make the car go faster, to want to win races. If you don't care about winning races, you're not going to put in the hours, you're not going to have those creative ideas that drive that car performance forward. We all go above and beyond what's written in the job description because we all want to make sure we deliver the quickest car out there."
The best advice I can give to anyone is to put yourself out there.
Andrew Evans, R&D Engineer
STEM subjects provide you with the fundamentals
"People who have studied STEM subjects are typically what we look for in the R&D department – these subjects provide a solid academic understanding of fundamental topics you will encounter in your role.
"I studied maths, physics, chemistry and German at A level and then went on to study mechanical engineering at the University of Birmingham. I did an integrated Master's, which was four years of studying, with a placement year after the third year. I graduated with an M Eng in 2021, and I completed a placement with the team in the R&D department."
Experience is everything
"The best advice I can give to anyone is to put yourself out there. You don't need to be the smartest person, you don't need to be top of the class, but if you've got experience that is relevant to the job that you want to do, that's the most valuable thing. I've been at university with people who get 90 per cent in their exams but they're not necessarily going to be the people that are designing bits of F1 cars or testing bits of F1 cars. It's all about being able to adapt and getting experience in relevant areas.
"Motorsport is a very different industry to most others because of the timescales and how quickly things evolve, so just getting involved in motorsport and understanding the competitive nature of it is important. Send emails and write letters with your CV attached to teams in junior formulae, whatever it may be, just to get your foot in the door. Everyone gets the degree, but not everyone has the relevant experience that will help them to be better at the job.
"My first professional experience in the racing world was as a data engineer on an F4 car because I knew someone who was a race engineer and I just asked if I could tag along and he said yes. The worst that can happen is that someone says no. You don't need to know these people. Personally, I think a handwritten letter posted to someone goes a long way. It's not something you receive very often anymore. Emails are easy to lose, but if you write a letter, send it to an F4 or F3 team and address it to someone who's fairly high up and they read it, they're more likely to give you a chance."
Experience is everything
So, you want to be an R&D Engineer?
Andrew Evans discusses what it takes to be an F1 R&D engineer.
"Our new Technology Campus has changed everything. Everyone is working under the same roof, it's such a collaborative and open space and it's a really inspiring place to work. We have so much space now in R&D: we've gone from having one of the smallest rooms in the old factory to having a massive facility with all the rigs we could possibly want.
"Adapting to the new space has been a challenge, but an exciting one because it's a completely clean slate – we've been able to spec the space how we want to enable us to do our very best work. It's an incredible place to work and walking through the doors every day, under the iconic Aston Martin wings, you feel like you are really part of something special."
It's addictive
"I think I would get bored very easily working at a standard automotive company. When I was younger, the thing that appealed to me about the automotive industry was that I thought driving around on the road and maybe seeing something I had worked on would be quite cool, but as soon as I got a taste for racing… It's so uncompromising, everyone's focused on making the car go as fast as possible and that's it. And that's all I want to do. There's this uncompromising focus on just going faster, on pushing the boundaries. You keep trying to raise the bar, higher and higher. It's addictive and love it."
Top tips
0.5
Study STEM subjects.
1
Gain motorsport experience – reach out to teams in junior formulae, and take part in Formula Student.
1.5
Develop your CAD and coding skills (Python).
2
Be passionate about constantly striving for better.
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