AT&T Williams F1

Born on 29th April 1971 in Western Australia, Sam Michael’s childhood was spent on the family farm where he was brought up learning the traditions of fixing and maintaining machinery as an essential element of keeping the family livelihood viable. Early life on the farm also provided him with the space to ride motorbikes from an early age, so his formative years were spent engaged with all things mechanical. It is little surprise then that, despite the relatively small Australian motor racing industry and the national obsession with rugby, cricket and athletics, Sam was drawn to Formula One.

By the age of twelve, Sam recalls his fascination progressing towards cars but he had already dismissed notions of competing and was set to follow an engineering path. Sam’s school career was therefore focused on the long term goal of securing a place to read for a degree in Mechanical Engineering, which he achieved having attained a place at the University of New South Wales.

By the time Sam had graduated from the University of New South Wales in 1993 with a degree in mechanical engineering, he had supplemented his academic studies with a considerable amount of time working on open wheel racing cars for the Formula Holden team. Initially, he had assisted with general race mechanics, but became increasingly involved in data acquisition and vehicle simulation - which became the subject of his degree thesis.

Following his graduation, his team boss Greg Siddle was instrumental in introducing Sam to Peter Collins, the manager at Team Lotus. Clearly Sam made a distinct impression on Collins, as shortly after their first meeting at the Adelaide Grand Prix in 1993, he was recruited and swiftly relocated to the plains of Norfolk where he began work under the stewardship of Peter Wright on data acquisition and simulation activities.

In many ways, Sam had broken the artificial career constraints that Australia’s finite racing industry placed upon aspiring engineers. “It’s true that growing up in Australian motor racing forces you to be more resourceful with what you have because the investment in racing in Australia is much less than it is in Europe,” he reflected.

His time at Team Lotus would be short lived, however, as the team closed in 1994, but Sam’s potential had already been spotted by Gary Anderson who encouraged Sam to join Jordan’s engineering group. For the next few years, Sam fully developed the team’s embryonic R&D department and his drive and natural ability saw considerable developments, including a seven post shaker rig for the simulation of suspension movement as well as a new active differential for the team’s race cars.

By now, a move to the front line was inevitable and, after initially test engineering, he took the vacant position as Ralf Schumacher’s race engineer. Sam was instrumental in guiding the Silverstone-based team through its most successful period, finishing 3rd in the 1999 World Championship, while race-engineering Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and steering the team to three of its four Grands Prix victories.

In 2001, having served at Jordan for seven years, Sam was persuaded to join Williams as the team’s Chief Operations Engineer, a multi-faceted role that included taking charge of all trackside engineering as well as dovetailing a wide variety of inputs into the race programme, test developments and simulation activities. It was an ideal opportunity. “I was particularly attracted to Williams because the team has an engineering-led ethos. I have a good team of people around me, but it’s my job to push everyone in what I believe is the right direction and set high standards for us to achieve.”

After three successful seasons working alongside Patrick Head, Sam took over the mantle of Technical Director in May 2004, adding the design and development of the race cars to his list of responsibilities while leaving Head to focus on the company’s engineering strategies as Director of Engineering. Widely regarded as one of the most competent race engineers and strategists in the pitlane, Michael is well placed to lead the team to a successful future.

Married to Vanessa, a criminologist and former Australian 400m champion, Sam lives in Oxford with their two young children. Hailing from Australia, it is not surprising that he likes nothing better than escaping to the ocean with the surfboard, and will usually try and get away to France for the odd week during the summer. That said, it is not always easy to get the time off in his current role, so he’ll often just relax at home, “I like running and have a treadmill at home that I will try and do twenty minutes on whenever I can at night. I sometimes go out running with Vanessa, although the only time I have ever kept up with her was when she was six months pregnant!”

In Brief:
Date of Birth: 29th April 1971
Lives: Oxford, UK.
Marital Status: Married to Vanessa, two children.
Nationality: Australian.

1993 - 1994: Design Engineer, Team Lotus
1995 - 1996: Data Engineer, Jordan F1
1996 - 1997: Head of R&D, Jordan F1
1997 - 2001: Race Engineer, Jordan F1
2001 - 2004: Chief Operations Engineer, Williams F1
May 2004: Technical Director, Williams F1