Former Components 1 driver and Components E group principal Jerome D’Ambrosio has joined Mercedes as its driver growth director.
Group principal Toto Wolff confirmed D’Ambrosio’s appointment after he was seen within the group’s storage early within the season.
Previous to being Venturi’s group principal in FE, d’Ambrosio spent six seasons racing within the collection and received races with Dragon Racing and Mahindra. His F1 expertise contains one season with Virgin Racing in 2011 and a one-off look with Lotus in 2012 as an alternative to Romain Grosjean whereas serving because the group’s reserve driver.
Wolff revealed d’Ambrosio will assume among the roles beforehand held by James Vowles, who left his place as technique director at the beginning of this 12 months to change into Williams’ group principal.
D’Ambrosio began his new job final week and will probably be chargeable for the group’s simulator driver roster and different driver-related matters along with their junior group, Mercedes confirmed to RaceFans.
“He’s taking care of the younger driver programme in very shut cooperation with Gwen [Lagrue], who has been doing it very efficiently over the previous couple of years.
“With Gwen’s group we’re grassroots motorsports from the early phases of go-karts. That is the place Gwen could be very lively, he was the one working with James, and now throughout the Brackley construction it’s Jerome who has taken that over.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“He’s issues and there’s loads of loads of scope that James did past the technique work. So I see Jerome rising within the organisation, however at this stage, that’s his space.”
D’Ambrosio beforehand labored with Wolff’s spouse Susie at Venturi. She was group principal whereas d’Ambrosio was deputy, and when she stepped as much as change into chief govt officer it then freed up the group principal position for d’Ambrosio to maneuver into.
Nevertheless the Mercedes group principal’s historical past with d’Ambrosio goes again additional than that. “I’ve recognized Jerome since a very long time, as a result of again within the day when he was within the Renault driver growth [programme], I considered managing him,” he stated.
“So it’s 15 or 20 years in the past, after which we had a glance once more at him when he when he dropped out of the programme. So I’ve recognized him as a racing driver, however by no means from the human standpoint, and by no means from the managerial aspect.”
D’Ambrosio made a profitable transition from driver to supervisor, stated Wolff. “When Susie provided him the choice to leap out of the cockpit right into a administration position, he took it with each arms they usually have been fairly an excellent aggressive duo, and Jerome led it into one other 12 months and completed second within the FE championship.
“He has the knowhow of getting been a racing driver at a really excessive degree. He was a go-karting world champion. He’s been in F1 and on the opposite aspect, the abilities as a supervisor. The place that can lead him is a query. At the moment it’s at a really early stage. He’s simply coming in within the driver growth half and administrative features. And we will see the place that goes.”
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
