“Being part of a smaller team exposed me to a broad range of responsibilities and areas of the business,” he says, “but it was always my dream to race engineer a driver to a world title, and to be part of a championship winning team, so the opportunity to work with Red Bull was impossible to turn down.”
GP began his tenure with the team by working alongside Daniil Kvyat but following the Russian driver’s departure early in the 2016 season, he took on a new challenge, race engineering a fast-rising new star – Max Verstappen. Together the pair have formed a formidable partnership and in their nine years together they have helped to deliver some of the most successful campaigns in the Team’s history.
“Building rapport and trust is paramount in a successful driver-engineer pairing with human performance becoming an ever-increasing factor in an athlete’s success,” GP explains.
In 2022, in addition to working with Max, GP was appointed Head of Race Engineering, a role that gives him responsibility for both cars and their crews. In this capacity, GP is responsible for the operation of both cars trackside, coordinating between the various areas of performance (aerodynamics, chassis, simulation, powertrain, control systems) to ensure delivery of the best possible package during a race event. Optimising car set-up is the other core area of focus, and this is where the skill of decoding driver feedback and using it to solve engineering problems plays a critical role, not only for the short-term gains at the track but for the longer-term conceptual design of the car.
As part of a future-focused restructuring of the race team in late 2024, GP was appointed Head of Racing. The newly created role will see him head up all trackside activities. Crucially, the new assignment won’t put an end to one of F1’s most effective partnerships and alongside his other duties, GP will continue to act as Max’s engineer as the duo go in search of even more wins and titles.
“The most satisfying thing about working in F1? The ever-evolving challenge,” he concludes. “You cannot afford to stand still, and striving for continuous performance gains, no matter how marginal, is extremely rewarding.”
