Paddy Lowe

Formula 1 employee

Vital statistics for Paddy Lowe
Nationality	GBR
Position	Chief technical officer
Team	Williams Martini Racing

Paddy Lowe’s departure from McLaren came as a huge blow to the team he had spent over twenty years with, but Lowe was following in Hamilton’s footsteps for a new role at Mercedes. Joining Toto Wolff as an Executive Director, Lowe’s responsibilities fall on the more technical side, helping the team succeed with their triple championship success. At the end of 2016, he announced his departure from the team, moving to Williams for the 2017 season.

Biography

Paddy Lowe studied engineering at Cambridge University, and a couple of years after graduation joined the Williams F1 team. Working on the electronics side, Paddy was made joint head of the department before leaving for McLaren in 1993. Heading up the entire Vehicle Technology outlook, Lowe was in charge of development and innovation, working on things like the power-steering and braking in his first few years.

Lowe gradually moved up the ranks at McLaren, becoming Chief Engineer and then Engineering Director. In 2011, he took on the role of Technical Director, steering the team’s direction from the top. With the departure of Lewis Hamilton as well as some disappointing season results, Lowe left McLaren for another directorship at Mercedes.

Although joining an already crowded managerial team at Mercedes, Lowe stepped in to the newly created Executive Director (Technical) position, alongside Toto Wolff in a similar (Business) role. With the departure of team stalwart Ross Brawn soon afterwards, the pressure was on Lowe to help push the team towards a championship victory and he delivered, helping Mercedes take the world titles in 2014 and beyond.

In early 2017, after three consecutive world championships with Mercedes, Paddy Lowe confirmed he was leaving the team and after a period of intense speculation it was revealed he would be joining Williams for the coming year as chief technical officer.

Filed under Formula 1 employees

Date	Title
01/02/2015	Defending champions Mercedes roll out F1 W06
03/07/2013	Race information - Germany 2013
22/01/2013	Musical chairs with Mercedes management
10/10/2012	Korea 2012 - Race information
29/08/2012	Belgium 2012 - Race information
11/04/2012	China 2012 - Race information
05/10/2011	Japan 2011 - Race information
24/08/2011	Belgium 2011 - Race information
08/06/2011	Canada 2011 - Race information
13/04/2011	China 2011 - Race information

Related news

Date	Title
16/02/2017	James Allison joins Mercedes as technical director
10/01/2017	Paddy Lowe leaves Mercedes and heads out on gardening leave
20/12/2016	Pat Symonds to leave Williams at the end of the year
29/11/2016	Rosberg celebrates becoming 2016 F1 World Champion
14/04/2014	Bob Bell set to leave Mercedes at the end of 2014
28/11/2013	Mercedes confirm departure of Ross Brawn
21/05/2013	Paddy Lowe set to join Mercedes in June
25/02/2013	Paddy Lowe replaced as technical director at McLaren
24/01/2013	Brawn and Hamilton see the bigger picture at Mercedes
22/01/2013	Ross Brawn could be replaced at Mercedes

Mentions during live coverage

Date	Update
30/07/2017	Paul di Resta, our super-sub for the day, is running comfortably in 17th place. Paddy Lowe admits they didn't make as much progress at the start as they would have liked, but there might be more opportunities as the race unfolds.
14/05/2017	The two Williams drivers are running next to each other, unfortunately for Paddy Lowe who was hoping for points, they are down in 13th and 14th position. Massa is about a second behind Stroll, so may look for a way past for pride.
14/05/2017	Paddy Lowe of Williams aims to get both drivers in the top ten today: "Very tough for Lance to get points today, but there are options to allow him that. Depends what happens in front, obviously. Felipe we’d like to be pushing up towards seventh, sixth place if we can."
10/07/2016	Paddy Lowe is looking particularly stressed on the pit wall.
23/11/2014	Rosberg gets commiserations over the radio from Paddy Lowe. "You drove like a champion all year." And he'll get a lot of respect for crossing the line and not giving up despite the car failing beneath him.
12/10/2014	Putin hands out the trophies to Lewis Hamilton, and Mercedes representative Paddy Lowe.
07/09/2014	Paddy Lowe confirms that they've changed the nose on Hamilton's car on the grid, after it picked up a bit of damage - possibly from an engineer clouting it with some equipment.
23/08/2014	Paddy Lowe, Mercedes: Quite surprising pace from the car to be perfectly honest. We’ve got pole by over two seconds, which is tremendous. When you go into a wet session, anything can happen. All credit to the drivers because it’s very tricky to drive out there, but in terms of managing the session it was a lot easier than it could have been.
06/07/2014	Paddy Lowe: "He just got the brakes a little bit hot on the way to the grid but it’s not an issue."
05/07/2014	Paddy Lowe, Mercedes, on Hamilton not finishing the lap: "He felt that the lap was worse and he bailed out, which is unfortunate because there was a lot of time found in sector three. These conditions are always very tricky… we can see it coming in, it’s the drying that is harder to predict."