Resta reunites with Allison again as Mercedes hires technical staff

Long-serving Ferrari engineer Simone Resta is moving to Mercedes where he will be reunited with the team’s technical director James Allison.

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The pair worked together during Allison’s two spells at the Italian team, from 1999 to 2004 and 2013 to 2016. Resta joined Ferrari in 2001 and stayed there until 2018, after which he spent short stints at their customer teams Sauber and Haas.

Resta left the latter team, where he held the position of technical director, at the beginning of this year. He is due to take on the role of strategic development director at Mercedes, though the team is yet to confirm when he will arrive.

He is one of two former Ferrari engineers making their way to Mercedes. Enrico Sampo, who was in charge of Ferrari’s driver-in-the-loop simulator team, will join them as head of performance software applications. His arrival date is also yet to be confirmed.

James Allison, Mercedes, Baku City Circuit, 2023 — Allison worked with Resta at Ferrari

Mercedes is bolstering its technical division as it seeks to turn around the slump in its form since Formula 1 introduced new technical regulations at the beginning of 2022. It has only won one of the 46 grands prix held in that time.

The team restored Allison to the role of technical director in April last year. In another change, David Nelson was promoted from senior vehicle dynamicist to performance director earlier this year, taking the place of Loic Serra, who moved to Ferrari during last season.

In reaction to its poor start to 2023, Mercedes committed to a drastic change in the philosophy behind its latest W15 chassis. Over the course of the first two rounds this year the team’s drivers have indicated they are happy with some of the changes that have been made, but they also reported a significant lack of performance in high-speed corners at the last round in Jeddah.

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10 comments on “Resta reunites with Allison again as Mercedes bolsters its technical division”

Park
20th March 2024, 12:55
A big loss for Ferrari
1. GeeMac (@geemac)
  20th March 2024, 13:06
  He’s been with Haas since 2021, so not really.
  1. RH
    20th March 2024, 16:48
    And Ferrari have had 0 worthy chassis since Restas designs going back 17 18.
2. MichaelN
  20th March 2024, 16:11
  Why? He has been hopping around Sauber/Ferrari/Haas for a few years already, and before that, when he gained a leadership role in 2012, there haven’t been any Ferrari cars who have won anything more than a handful of races, and some not even that.
Asd
20th March 2024, 13:06
I would love to see a comprehensive list of all F1 engineers and major staff members who have worked for 2 or more F1 teams.
The WDC and WCC results in any season are essentially an expression of how good a set of engineers and managers a given team currently is made of until the next re-shuffling.
I bet a graph with such inter-team staff movements would easily show e.g. the demise of Mercedes and rejuvenation of McLaren and things like that.
1. GeeMac (@geemac)
  20th March 2024, 13:09
  The most successful people in that regard over the last few years have probably been Ross Brawn/Rory Byrne (Benetton -Ferrari), Adrian Newey (Williams – McLaren – Red Bull) and Aldo Costa (Ferrari – Mercedes).
  1. rprp
    20th March 2024, 17:50
    James Allison (Renault/Lotus, Ferrari, Mercedes).
  2. Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
    21st March 2024, 9:11
    Jock Clear (Williams – Mercedes – Ferrari)
isthatglock21
20th March 2024, 20:12
Might as well go all in and get yourself Paul Di Resta
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
20th March 2024, 22:21
Did Hamilton leaving cause the Mercedes technical team to finally face the fact that their designs over the last few years are horrendous?