What is it like to be a Stores Apprentice at Cadillac Formula 1® Team? Day to day, I spend a lot of my time booking things in, moving them around, making sure that they’re stored properly because some are really expensive and some are super fragile and need to be stored in certain conditions. At all times, you’ve got to be switched on and know where everything is and what’s coming in.
Because of how everything’s designed, I get to see where everything goes on the car. When you think of it that way, it’s the most insane job for someone who is 19. I’m making sure those parts get to where they need to be for them to build the Formula 1® car, which is crazy because if I didn’t do my job and my colleagues didn’t do their job, we wouldn’t be able to race.
One of my favorite memories to date was during car build, and it was time to fire up. We were all standing here waiting for about an hour for it to happen. I remember the first time it started and thinking, wow, we’ve built a Formula 1® car! We all just looked at each other, as if to say, this is the craziest thing we’ve ever done. We’re different from most teams because we’ve built a car from nothing, we have built everything from scratch. Watching the car go around the track during Shakedown was amazing. A real sense of pride and achievement.
I’m learning all the time here and I think I’m learning more at Cadillac F1® Team than I could at any other team. There’s a nice balance of experience from many different Teams, people bring their experience and want to build, feed back, try something new, think differently and work it out together. Everyone is very honest with their feedback, and equally everyone is open to feedback. Over time, the process will improve even more, because everyone is in the loop, communicating and providing feedback. Everyone feels like part of the Team, it’s brilliant.
What does the future hold?
I don’t think I could have joined a better Team. I’ve learned so much about what Formula 1® is actually like. The thing is, you can see everything from the outside, you see everyone saying how much they love their job, and how it’s brilliant. And they’re not wrong – it’s a brilliant industry to work in. But what you don’t see is the difficult days. On those days, I am extremely fortunate to have an incredible Team around me to give advice on how to make it through those days, or how to face challenging days.
I’ve always known what I wanted to do. And now that I’m here, I want to keep on pushing myself to be the best I can be and achieve more. Everything moves so fast, and sometimes you just don’t realize that what you’ve done in one day is absolutely incredible. Appreciating what you’ve accomplished is so important. I enjoy celebrating the successes and feeling like I’ve made a big contribution.
I’m in a really good place to do that at Cadillac F1® Team. We’ve got so much to look forward to, so many milestones to reach. And I want to be right here, right in amongst it for every single breakthrough moment.
