Anyone who works for a Formula 1 team, or who follows the F1 circus around the world fulltime, knows that it is not an easy life. There is constant pressure to perform, in whatever walk of life, and one is away from home much of the time. This means that from some individuals feel the need to take time out, to recharge their batteries and while not everyone can do that, some of the bigger teams do have the potential to allow their staff the chance to take a break. There is always a danger that one’s job will have been taken over by a replacement by the time one returns, but the bigger teams now have such strength in depth that this is even considered a good thing. It seems that Polish-born engineer Marcin Budkowski, one of the top aerodynamicists at McLaren, has decided to take a sabbatical, although this has led to suggestions that he is in fact on way back to Ferrari, where he worked in the early 2000s.
Budkowski has been at McLaren since October 2007, when he joined the team as a senior aerodynamicist. He then became team leader of trackside aerodynamics in 2008 and in the summer of 2009 was promoted to project leader for the team’s aerodynamic development. There has been a lot of that going on in the last two years as the team has been playing catch up in both seasons.
Budkowksi is one of the best qualified engineers in F1, having won place at the celebrated Ecole Polytechnique, France’s top engineering school, after moving there from Poland. Graduates go on to the top jobs in French government, industry and finance sectors, with alumni including businessmen such as Bernard Arnault, the boss of LVMH; André Citroën the founder of Citroën; Serge Dassault of the Dassault Group; Thierry Desmarest, the boss of Total; Carlos Ghosn, the boss of Renault and several French presidents, notably Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, not to mention Generals Ferdinand Foch, Joseph Joffre and Robert Nivelle. From there he moved on to study aeronautics at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace, which is known as SUPAERO in Toulouse, which provides many of the engineers employed by Airbus and in France’s space programme. He also spent a year as an exchange student at Imperial College in London before being taken on by Prost Grand Prix in Paris.
A year later he moved to Ferrari, where he worked in CFD for two years before becoming an aerodynamic project leader between 2004 and 2007. This led to an offer to join McLaren.
He has now decided to take a year out of F1 but the team says he will be back again later this year.
joeblogsf1 
The fact that some of the teams are so big now, having complete design and development team, I am sure the big guys have succession plans in place for just such situations. In the larger team, Does an engineer leaving make that much of a difference? Newey left Williams and Williams started having significant problems, but when Newey left MC Laren they were ok for a while after his departure, was it a good succession plan or the fact they could ride Newey’s accomplishements for a couple of years?
In regular businesses every major executive has to build his succession plan I am sure it would be something similar in the big F1 teams.
No?
Joe,
In the F1 world, how long does a person stay with a team on average? Do some of these people have agents or a manager that get them new positions, or is there someone at a team, that looks for talent in the engineering world?
Back in my day, very early 1980’s, we found the job in the back of a magazine and applied for it. I haven’t seen any employment agencies that purely work in the F1 racing world, but maybe there are ones. I am not thinking of a career change, just that you have brought up the subject of people moving around, and we do hear, from people like you, that a certain top line engineer has moved, but what about the second tier staff, how do they move or get poached to join other teams?
in no particular order…
1. Greener grass elsewhere ( rose tints 😉 )
2. Career opportunity
3. More money
4. Clashes in personality
(Some develop a reputation that actually keeps them from being able to move)
so it’s the same as any other business really
“… not to mention Generals Ferdinand Foch, Joseph Joffre and Robert Nivelle.”
This is the sort of stuff you don’t get at other F1 sites.
Joe, joe. Spain is not Latin America. The Slim family is Mexican, even if they weren’t supporting Sauber and Perez, why would they invest any money in a Spanish team. Now don’t take this the wrong way, just wanted to clarify and make sure you don’t mix Latin America and Spain again.
May I respectfully suggest that you read the article again. It is very obvious from any map that Spain is not Latin America. I did not say it was. Latin America refers to territories in the Americas where the Spanish or Portuguese languages prevail: Mexico, most of Central and South America, and in the Caribbean, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. In summary, Hispanic America and Portuguese-speaking Brazil.
The Slim Family control a substantial number of the telecommunications companies in these regions. It does not matter whether they are Mexican or Finnish. The other big player is Spain’s Telefonica. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to work out that these regions are good potential markets for Spanish companies (and indeed Portuguese ones as well). One can even see the same happening in reverse, with Latin American companies seeing Spain (and Portugal) as potential markets for their goods.
… so people still count in Formula 1. Luckily