Who are the 2025 F1 team bosses? This article breaks down for you everything you need to know about all of them.
An F1 team boss is most often the team principal or CEO. Sometimes, it is the same person, but this varies from team to team.
The team principal or CEO are two of the most important figures in an F1 team. Each of the ten teams on the 2025 grid has one team principal, so naturally, there are ten team principals. But that isn't the case with CEOs.
Team bosses make big-picture decisions, choose drivers, carry out contract negotiations, go through performance reviews, and handle internal conflicts.
They might not be fully involved in the technical aspects, but they work closely with engineers and oversee the car development, making sure their technical team is on the right track.
Team bosses are also involved in race strategies, working closely with strategists on the pit wall to make key decisions regarding team orders, tire choices, and pit stops, for example.
Securing sponsors and maintaining relationships with them and other partners is also one of the key aspects of this work.
Finally, you might know some of the team principals or CEOs from interviews before, during, and after race weekends. That's because they handle media duties and answer key questions concerning their F1 teams. Their input is crucial in shaping the team's public image.
Being team principal or CEO is a very demanding job, and all that we have on the 2025 grid are ten of the best, most skilled leaders in motorsport. Here is an overview of all F1 teams and their team principals:
F1 Team | Boss |
McLaren | Andrea Stella and Zak Brown |
Ferrari | Frederic Vasseur |
Red Bull | Christian Horner |
Mercedes | Toto Wolff |
Aston Martin | Andy Cowell |
Alpine | Oliver Oakes and Flavio Briatore |
Haas | Ayao Komatsu |
Racing Bulls | Laurent Mekies and Peter Bayer |
Williams | James Vowles |
Sauber | Jonathan Wheatley |
Team Boss Name | Andrea Stella - team principal | Zak Brown - CEO |
Nationality | ๐ฎ๐น Italian | ๐บ๐ธ American |
Age | 53 | 53 |
Seasons in F1 | 25 | 7 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 2 | 7 |
Titles | ๐ 13 | ๐ 1 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 1 | ๐ 1 |
Andrea Stella is one of the team principals who gets help from the CEO, in this case, Zak Brown. Brown is an expert on marketing, securing sponsors, maintaining relationships, and the commercial side of the business, which allows Stella to focus on the more technical stuff.
The collaboration between the team principal and CEO at McLaren works very well, as Stella, with Brown, led the Papaya team to the Constructors' title in 2024.
The Italian team principal is one of the most experienced people in the paddock, having started his career in Ferrari, working with the likes of Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen, and Fernando Alonso. Stella has been with McLaren since 2015, and he has been team principal since the 2023 season.
Brown, on the other hand, is a skilled businessman and former racing driver who joined McLaren Racing as a CEO in 2018. He is a big part of the reason why the McLaren F1 team doesn't have to worry about money.
Team Boss Name | Fred Vasseur - team principal |
Nationality | ๐ซ๐ท French |
Age | 56 |
Seasons in F1 | 9 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 9 |
Titles | ๐ 0 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 0 |
Frederic Vasseur has led the Scuderia Ferrari F1 team since 2023. He took over as team principal after Mattia Binotto resigned after the end of the 2022 season.
Vasseur is who you will see at every single race weekend. He is the person who oversees the F1 team's day-to-day operations, strategy, and performance.
Vasseur reports to Ferrari's Executive Chairman John Elkann and CEO Benedetto Vigna, who don't get involved in day-to-day but do have a say in the big-picture decisions.
For example, John Elkann was said to have played a role in signing Lewis Hamilton, who drives for Ferrari starting in 2025.
Vasseur started his career founding and leading F3 and F2 teams where he won multiple championships with drivers like Nico Rosberg or Lewis Hamilton.
In 2016, he took the role of team principal at Renault (now known as Alpine in F1), but after disagreements on how the team should be led, he switched to Sauber, where he remained until 2022 before taking the role of team principal at Ferrari.
Team Boss Name | Christian Horner - CEO and team principal |
Nationality | ๐ฌ๐ง British |
Age | 51 |
Seasons in F1 | 20 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 20 |
Titles | ๐ 14 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 14 |
Christian Horner has been only with on team during his career in F1. He became Red Bull Racing's team principal and CEO in 2005 when the F1 team was established.
When he was appointed, Horner became the youngest team principal in F1 history. In 2025, he will be one of the longest-serving team principals, with 20 seasons under his belt.
During his 20 seasons in F1, the Briton won six Constructors' and eight Drivers' titles with Red Bull Racing, for a total of 14 titles.
Horner has led Red Bull to incredible success in Formula 1, also scoring the most dominant season in the history of the sport with Max Verstappen in 2023.
The CEO and team principal of Red Bull Racing leads the whole team and even has a certain degree of control over Racing Bulls's driver lineup the F1 team works with drivers from the Red Bull Academy and is owned by Red Bull as well.
The only people to who Horner reports are Red Bull GmbH managing director Oliver Mintzlaff and the owners of the energy drinks company - Mark Mateschitz with Chalerm Yoovidhya.
Team Boss Name | Toto Wolff - CEO and team principal |
Nationality | ๐ฆ๐น Austrian |
Age | 53 |
Seasons in F1 | 16 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 13 |
Titles | ๐ 15 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 15 |
Torger Christian "Toto" Wolff is a former racing driver, businessman, billionaire investor, and motorsport executive. He is the CEO and team principal of Mercedes's F1 team, of which he owns 33%.
While some of the other team principals split leadership responsibilities with one other person, as mentioned above, Wolff controls everything at the Mercedes F1 team, and the only people he needs to consult are the remaining shareholders.
Wolff started his journey in F1 with Williams, but in 2013, he joined Mercedes as executive director. During his 12 seasons with the German F1 team, he won 15 titles - seven Drivers' and eight consecutive Constructors' in 2014-2021.
Team Boss Name | Andy Cowell - CEO and team principal |
Nationality | ๐ฌ๐ง British |
Age | 55 |
Seasons in F1 | 27 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 0 |
Titles | ๐ 12 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 0 |
Andy Cowell replaced Mike Krack as Aston Martin F1 team principal and CEO following an underwhelming performance of the team in 2024.
Cowell has a wealth of experience and is famous mainly for overseeing Mercedes AMG High-Performance Powertrains as Managing Director from 2013 to 2020.
Mercedes won 12 world titles from 2014 to 2020: six Drivers' and six Constructors' during his stewardship at Powertrains.
Cowell left Mercedes at the end of 2020, seeking a new challenge. In July 2024, he joined Aston Martin's F1 team as its new CEO - reporting to executive Chairman and partial owner Lawrence Stroll.
While Lawrence Stroll still takes part in the big decisions, Andry Cowell's job will be to oversee dedicated trackside and AMR Technology Campus-based teams, both of which report to him.
Team Boss Name | Oliver Oakes - team principal | Flavio Briatore - Executive Advisor |
Nationality | ๐ฌ๐ง British | ๐ฎ๐น Italian |
Age | 37 | 74 |
Seasons in F1 | 0,5 | 23 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 0 | 21 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 0 | ๐ 7 |
Oliver Oakes is a British former racing driver, entrepreneur, and team principal of the Alpine F1 team. He was appointed a team principal of the French F1 team after the departure of Bruno Famin in the middle of 2024.
So far, Oakes hasn't completed a full season in Formula 1, but he has experience managing motorsport teams. He started by establishing a karting team - Team Oakes Racing, in 2011, which went on to achieve great success in multiple competitions.
But more importantly, as Formula 1 reported, Oakes helped form the Hitech Grand Prix (now Hitech Pulse-Eight) 2015 and led it to great success in multiple series, including F2 and F3, in the following years.
Oakes focuses on overseeing day-to-day on track and at the factory, but it seems the one that makes the big decisions at Alpine is Flavio Briatore, who returned to F1 in May 2024 after 25 years of absence.
Although Briatore's title is Executive Advisor, Car magazine interpreted it as "team boss in all but name." Motor Sport informed that the Italian has been given complete discretion to hire and fire within the team.
Although his career has had some controversies, Briatore achieved great success. He won two Drivers' and one Constructors' title with Michael Schumacher in Benetton in 1994 and 1995 and later won two Drivers' and Constructors' titles with Fernando Alonso in Renault (2005 and 2006).
Team Boss Name | Ayao Komatsu - team principal |
Nationality | ๐ฏ๐ต | Japanese |
Age | 48 |
Seasons in F1 | 22 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 1 |
Titles | ๐ 2 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 0 |
Ayao Komatsu became the team principal of Haas ahead of the 2024 season following a controversial split between previous team principal Guenther Steiner and the F1 team.
Komatsu worked for three F1 teams throughout his career. He started with BARโBritish American Racing, then moved to Renault in 2006 (when the F1 team won the Drivers' and the Constructors' titles) and finally joined the newly established Haas in 2016.
Having been with the team since its beginning and working closely with the previous team principal, Steiner, the owner of the F1 team Gene Haas, felt Komatsu was most suitable for promotion to team principal.
Under the leadership of the Japanese team principal, Haas scored its second-best championship result in its history, finishing seventh in 2024 and improving by three positions compared to the previous season.
Team Boss Name | Laurent Mekies - team principal | Peter Bayer - CEO |
Nationality | ๐ซ๐ท French | ๐ฆ๐น Austrian |
Age | 47 | 54 |
Seasons in F1 | 24 | 7 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 1 | 1,5 |
Titles | ๐ 0 | ๐ 0 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 0 | ๐ 0 |
Laurent Mekies and Peter Bayer lead Racing Bulls, the F1 team that was previously known as RB / VCARB, Alphatauri, or Toro Rosso.
Mekies joined Racing Bulls ahead of 2024, but he has worked with the Faenza-based team before, from 2005 to 2014. His resume also includes work at FIA as safety director and F1 deputy race director, as well as a period with Ferrari as deputy Team Principal and Racing Director.
With previous experience promoting youth sport and music and contributions to the Olympic movement, Peter Bayer joined the FIA in 2017 as Secretary General and later as executive director of the Formula One World Championship. In 2023, he joined RB as CEO.
How the two split responsibilities is best explained by Bayer himself, who told Planet F1: "We have a very clear split. Which is racing and sporting is Laurent โ finance, business, and strategy is me."
Team Boss Name | James Vowles - team principal |
Nationality | ๐ฌ๐ง British |
Age | 45 |
Seasons in F1 | 24 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 2 |
Titles | ๐ 17 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 0 |
James Vowles has been in Formula 1 since 2001. He started with British American Racing and stayed with the team through all of its transitions: Honda, Brawn GP, and Mercedes.
The Briton achieved incredible success with the F1 team, winning 17 titles in total: one Drivers' and Constructors' with Brawn GP and seven Drivers' and eight Constructors' with Mercedes.
Vowles was seen as a potential successor to Mercedes's team principal, Toto Wolff. In January 2023, he left his position as Motorsport Strategy Director at the German team to become the team principal of Williams Racing.
Vowles has worked with multiple world champions in his career, including Jacques Villeneuve, Jenson Button, Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, and Lewis Hamilton, and his goal is to create some more champions at Williams now.
Team Boss Name | Jonathan Wheatley - team principal |
Nationality | ๐ฌ๐ง British |
Age | 57 |
Seasons in F1 | 33 |
Seasons as F1 team boss | 0 |
Titles | ๐ 18 |
Titles as F1 team boss | ๐ 0 |
Although 2025 is Jonathan Wheatley's first season as a team principal, he is one of the most experienced people in the Formula 1 paddock.
Throughout his career, Wheatley won 18 titles with the teams he worked for: 2 Drivers' and 1 Constructors' with Benetton (1994-1995), 1+1 with Renault (2005), and 7+6 with Red Bull (2010-2013, 2021-2023).
As Motorsport.com reported, Wheatley should have joined Sauber in mid-2025, but Red Bull agreed to release him by 1 April, which means he joins the F1 team before the third round of the season in Japan. In the meantime, it seems that the CTO Mattia Binotto leads the Sauber F1 team.
After 2026, Sauber will transition into Audi, so the Briton will not only manage day-to-day operations but, along with Binotto, face a huge challenge. They must ensure the smoothest and most effective transition possible while meeting performance goals in the upcoming years.