THE LONG INTERVIEW
THIS IS OTMAR SZAFNAUER
Otmar Szafnauer’s journey from Romania to F1 team boss
From a small village in Romania, Otmar Szafnauer’s family fled the communist dictatorship to begin a new life in Detroit in the 1970s. Working in the car industry led to Szafnauer meeting Adrian Reynard, who in 1999 offered him a job at his new BAR team. Ten years later, that experience made him the perfect candidate to run the day-to-day operations of Force India, which has now become Racing Point. Over lunch in Oxford, we hear the extraordinary life story of the man whose love of classic American cars prompted him to convince his father to flee to the United States…
There is a little corner of Oxford inhabited by F1 royalty. The area north of the city, known as Summertown, is where Mercedes chief Toto Wolff resides. Mclaren’s racing director Gil de Ferran recently lived in the house once owned by Eddie Jordan. And our very own technical consultant Pat Symonds is five doors down from today’s interviewee, Otmar Szafnauer. The Racing Point team principal suggests we meet at his local. The converted boathouse is now a beautiful restaurant on the river, offering punting, fine wine and delicious cuisine. Szafnauer regularly brings friends visiting from the States here, for a taste of unspoiled England.
He shows us the area where a live band performed for his 50th birthday party, a few summers ago. As Otmar casts his eye over the menu and selects a vintage red wine, the owner of the Cherwell Boat House pops into the cellar for us. He returns brandishing a fine Spanish Vega Sicilia red with a sticker around the cork, which reads: ‘For Otmar’. “I always make sure they have a few vintage wines in their cellar for me, such as a Margaux, Dominus or a Harrison Hill,” says the Racing Point boss as he churns the vin rouge around his glass.
We begin our conversation far away from this idyllic location, by starting with his extraordinary upbringing in Ceaușescu-run communist Romania.
F1 Racing: Otmar, you have an unusual backstory since you grew up in the 1960s behind the so-called Iron Curtain. Were you aware of the political situation at the time?
Otmar Szafnauer: I grew up on the western edge of Romania, close to the Hungarian border. My father was of German descent, but my mother was Romanian. I grew up in a small village of 5,000 people which was quite rural – a lot of farmland. At the time, all I cared about was playing football or with the dog, not the bigger political picture.
My dad regularly applied to leave the country [he was born in Pennsylvania and returned to Europe when he was 14] but they wouldn’t let him. When I was seven, he tried to escape and was caught. Sometimes, if they caught you at the border they shot you. In Romania, surrounded by other Communist countries, it was hard to get to the West. My father was then imprisoned. From what I understand, during the time he was in prison, President Nixon met with the dictator of Romania, Nicolae Ceaușescu. Back then there were over 40 American families living in Romania, and they did a deal that allowed all the families to leave. And that included us.
When my father was allowed out of prison, they gave him his American passport and said he was free to go. The reason we ended up back in America was because I absolutely loved their cars. This was 1972 and the cars I adored were ’57 Chevys and Cadillacs with their big rear wings. We had the choice of going to Germany, but I said we should go to America, despite none of us speaking English. We got a Pan-am flight out of Bucharest, flew to New York and on to Detroit. That was the perfect place for my love of cars.
All my life I spoke German to my father and Romanian to my mother. In Detroit, there were a lot of German immigrants that could speak the language. At school there was a dinner lady and she was the only one there who spoke a language I could understand. I spoke to her for two or three minutes every day in German and the rest of the time I was immersed in English. It took me three months to learn the language and six months to be fluent. This was at the age of eight.
F1R: Did you always want to work in the car industry?
OS: Not really. At high school I remember thinking ‘what am I going to do with my life’? One thing that came easy to me was
mathematics, and I thought about being an engineer – but my dad said they didn’t make much money, so I chose the most difficult engineering discipline I could: electrical engineering and electronics. From there I got a job at Ford.
A little bit later I went to a Jim Russell Racing School. I was in my mid-20s – too old, really, to start a career. I had a bit of success, raced in Formula Ford with a ’91 Reynard and won a few races. Then I had a massive shunt.
It was the last event of the season, a wet race, at a venue called Waterford Hills. Going into Turn 1, a quick righthander, my wet feet slipped off the brakes. Suddenly I was on the grass with no way to slow down. I hit a tyre barrier which acted as a ramp and I nearly ended up in the car park. It could have been really bad. Instead my car hit a ticket seller’s hut. It was a huge shunt. Every corner on the car was destroyed and the roll cage saved me.
I had concussion and for about ten days after, the doctor said that I was going to feel like I was floating and that’s exactly how I felt – very woozy. Didn’t put me off racing at all… I think the younger you are, the less you understand the risks. But I had a second shunt the following year, which proved too costly, and that ended my racing career.
F1R: Have you driven anything since then?
OS: Not until last year, when I did seven laps in a Radical at Silverstone. It was absolutely great. It was a BRDC trackday and I bought a share of this car, along with [former Indycar and F1 team owner] Adrian Reynard. I just haven’t found the time before and would love to do more – it was really cool. The Radical is powerful, light and forgiving. When you understeer and correct it, it bites, when you oversteer, there’s no sudden snap. And they’re fast too. Copse corner was brilliant! I followed Reynard for a couple of laps to show me the lines – he was in a Corvette – and very quickly I thought ‘I don’t need to follow you anymore!’ F1R: Back to your role at the Ford Motor Company – you moved into a section that was involved in new concepts?
OS: Yes, I was in strategic planning and then joined a branch called NCO, which stood for New Concepts Organisation.
I had the job of coming up with sports and performance ideas. I came up with two concepts. The first was a performance SUV. This was the mid-1990s when Sports Utility Vehicles were just starting to become popular. My idea was for an SUV with a lower centre of gravity, better handling, better suspension and a more powerful engine. Never made it, bad idea Otmar…
The other concept I came up with while in the NCO was a two-seater Indycar for the road, called the Indigo. It was really cool. Carbonfibre tub, pushrod suspension, sequential gearbox, with a stressed 6-litre V12.
Adrian Reynard built two of them, a show car and a go car – and NASCAR owner Jack Roush still has them, I believe. That’s how I met Adrian Reynard, and then one day he said to me, ‘I’m starting a Formula 1 team, why don’t you come over to the UK and work for me.’
I’d been with Ford for 12 years and left in 1998 and moved straight to Brackley to join British American Racing.
“SUDDENLY I WAS ON THE GRASS WITH NO WAY TO SLOW DOWN. I HIT A TYRE BARRIER WHICH ACTED AS A RAMP AND I NEARLY ENDED UP IN THE CAR PARK”
F1R: Living in the USA at that time, were you aware of the Formula 1 scene?
OS: Oh, absolutely. I went to my first GP in Detroit in 1984 and I was hooked. I’d watch every race at 7am on a Sunday morning. I knew quite a bit about F1 and Reynard had a big reputation in America. He said he needed an operations director and by now I had a degree in finance and economics. And I’d understood racing, having done a bit myself.
We had Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta driving for us. The shareholders were made up of British American Tobacco 50%, Villeneuve’s manager Craig Pollock 35%, and Adrian Reynard 15%. Our budget was £45 million a year which BAT put in. But we kept over-spending. Eventually, BAT took over most of Reynard and Pollock’s shares, then Honda bought 55% and eventually Honda took all of BAT’S shares. But, by that stage I’d left and gone to Jaguar…
F1R: Did you actually work at Jaguar Racing? OS: It’s a funny story. Indycar driver and team owner Bobby Rahal was friends with the Ford Motor Company. He took over as team principal of Jag, but he said he needed to take care of his Indycar team. He wanted someone with operational experience and asked me to come and join him as COO.
So I took up the challenge.
Then overnight, the senior management changed at Ford and Niki Lauda was employed above Rahal. I don’t know what happened between Lauda and Rahal, but they went their separate ways two days before I was due to start.
I was at a wedding on the Friday night and was set to commence work on the Monday. At the wedding, I received a phonecall to be told Rahal had been fired and that I didn’t need to bother coming in on Monday. My work permit at the time was dependent on having a job in the UK, so I was a bit concerned about that – but I had signed a three-year contract.
Over the next six months I negotiated an exit out of the contract with Sir John Allison, James Allison’s dad, who was working at Jaguar at the time.
I won’t go into too much detail, but I earned more money not working at the Ford Motor Company than I did in the 12 years that I did work for them…
“WHEN I STARTED WITH FORCE INDIA WE WERE NINTH IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP WITH 280 PEOPLE AND I’VE GROWN IT TO THE 425 WE HAVE TODAY. WE ENDED UP FOURTH TWICE AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN FOURTH LAST YEAR”
F1R: You went back to Honda, but then left F1 when they pulled out of the sport suddenly at the end of 2008…
OS: I had a year trying to figure out what to do next, so I had this idea of a timing app, and this came from watching the data on the pitwall and in the garage. I had an iphone, which was relatively new then. I was at the back of the church at a wedding one Saturday afternoon and discovered with my phone I could start looking up football scores – live. Wow, I thought, wouldn’t it be great to put the data you can get from the pitwall and have it on your phone? To be clear, this was when we were waiting for the bride to come in… Later that year I was in Bernie’s office showing him the concept and the following year it had launched. I watched the start of the 2009 Monaco GP on my phone from the timing app.
F1R: You were soon back in F1 with Force India when it did a deal to use Mclaren’s gearbox and Mercedes engine package…
OS: There was a hole at the team when their chief operating officer Simon Roberts decided to return to Mclaren, rather than stay at Force India. Both former Mclaren boss Martin Whitmarsh and Bernie Ecclestone recommended me to Force India owner Vijay Mallya. I joined in 2009 and have been in the role ever since. When I started with Force India we were ninth in the championship with 280 people and I’ve grown it to the 425 we have today. We ended up fourth twice and should have been fourth last year.
The secret to our success, despite being underfunded, is focus. Focus on what’s important to make us go quick. And apply that to every decision – including hiring personnel, how you spend your money, which drivers you get in. And I have a very good relationship with our technical director Andrew Green. I’ve known him 21 years as he was chief designer at BAR and I hired him from Wirth Research after he’d had a spell at Red Bull. We see eye to eye and get on very well.
F1R: How difficult was it with Vijay in the latter years with his financial troubles with the Indian authorities?
OS: At the beginning not too difficult, but tricky towards the end. To be fair to Vijay, when he didn’t have those issues he
“THE EARLY DAYS WITH FORCE INDIA WERE GREAT AND THE PARTIES ON THE INDIAN EMPRESS IN MONACO WERE SOME OF THE BEST PARTIES I’VE EVER BEEN TO”
funded the team, but when they happened we struggled a bit. The team couldn’t survive without the change we had last summer with administration and Lawrence Stroll coming in.
But the early days with Force India were great and his parties on the Indian Empress in Monaco were some of the best parties I’ve ever been to. Suddenly on his boat you’d see the Tottenham Hotspur manager of the time or a random royal.
The boat would have three separate parties. On the huge top deck there would be a DJ blaring out techno music with everyone dancing, drinking, having fun. On the second deck it was a different genre of music but you couldn’t hear the deck above you. Both were deafening but the boat was so big. On the bottom floor there was a glass fishbowl and you needed a special pass to get in there. Inside, Vijay would be smoking cigars, entertaining Anthony Hamilton, Prince Albert, Bernie, the drivers… They could see out, but you couldn’t see in.
I remember one time the captain appeared a little worried with how many people were on the boat and he stopped people boarding because he thought, if everyone went to one side, it could easily list and topple over. If they were all equally distributed – there would be no problem. I asked him at what point he got worried and he said: ‘Right now there’s 700 people on board. Now I’m worried!’
F1R: What is the future plan for Racing Point?
OS: Ever since I’ve been here, we’ve worked hard to make the team better and better – and made some strategic decisions along the way. Our next steps are to continue with like-minded individuals to progress further and expand into a new factory.
The philosophy I have is two-fold. The first is to make the car as quick as possible, and secondly to make the team the best place to work. But what you might consider to be a good place to work is different to what someone else will think. Some might like a pat on the back after a good job, others consider the money, some want to compete at a high level while others are happy to punch above their weight. You need to know your staff and deliver for them – getting to understand all their individual incentives is not an easy thing to do – but I try. When you compare Force India with the Mclaren Technology Centre it’s night and day, but some people left Mclaren and came to us because they preferred it.
F1R: We began your story with the seven-year old running around a small village in Romania liking American classic cars and have finished with your job as team principal of one of the ten Formula 1 teams. You could never have predicted the journey your life would have taken…
OS: Never, not in a million years. Had I not joined the Ford Motor Company, I would never have met Adrian Reynard, because I would never have been in charge of Sports Performance Vehicles – and I would have never come over to Formula 1. It wasn’t on my career trajectory, it has mainly been circumstance.
But I tell young engineers to have a five-year plan in their head, then you naturally carve out the path to get there. Everyday, little decisions you make have that plan in mind.
It’s the same for me when I take a team from ninth to fourth. What have I got to do? And it’s little decisions based on the greater plan each day. Areas to strengthen, tyre engineers, windtunnel model makers… For me, the next five years are to make Racing Point as good as possible for the new owners and to get it to a position where it’s not so dependent on owner financial input.
I remember at the very beginning with Vijay. In my first budget meeting in Bahrain, we finished ninth in the championship and he asked how much prize money we were getting and how much from sponsorship? In total, it left a shortfall in our operating budget of $55 million. But then he put that amount in.
My first thought was: ten years of this is $550 million – you’re going to get sick of this. So I suggested we set up a commercial team, because even if they found us $30 million in sponsorship (at the time we had about $2.5million from Medion), which means he’s only putting in 20 million not 55, we could go twice as long. He said ‘you worry about performance, I’ll worry about the money’ – but it wasn’t sustainable, so we put a commercial group together which has expanded from zero to 12 people today.
My next five years are set on performance and financial viability. But they are not complementary – that’s a hard thing to achieve in Formula 1.