Paddy Lowe

Patrick Allen Lowe FREng (born 8 April 1962), known as Paddy Lowe, is a British motor racing engineer and computer scientist. He served as the chief technical officer at Williams Racing, and previously as the executive director (technical) of the Mercedes Formula One team.

Paddy Lowe

FREng
Lowe in 2018
Born
Patrick Allen Lowe

(1962-04-08) 8 April 1962
Nairobi, British Kenya
NationalityBritish
Alma materSevenoaks School
Sidney Sussex College
University of Cambridge
OccupationFormer Formula One Chief Technical Officer
Spouse(s)Anna Danshina
Children2

Education

Lowe attended Sevenoaks School from 1976 until 1980 and graduated from Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge in 1984 with a degree in Engineering.

Formula One career

Williams (1987–1993)

In 1987 Lowe was employed by Williams as Joint Head of Electronics. He spent six years at Williams, during which time he developed the software for Frank Dernie's active suspension design, used to help Nigel Mansell win the 1992 World Championship.[1]

McLaren (1993–2013)

Lowe moved to McLaren in 1993, when he was employed as Head of Research and Development, a department subsequently renamed Vehicle Technology.[2] He was head of the department for eight years until 2001, when he was appointed Chief Engineer Systems Development, a role focusing on the race programme for the McLaren MP4-20. In May 2005 he assumed the role of Engineering Director, which gave him responsibility for all the engineering departments.[3] Lowe has not been without controversy, when he was personally fined 150,000 Euros for his involvement in the 2007 Formula One espionage controversy, which centred around the theft of 780 pages of confidential Ferrari documents.[4] In January 2011 Lowe became the team's Technical Director.[5] He left McLaren in 2013.

Mercedes (2013–2017)

Lowe moved to the Mercedes Formula One team as Executive Director on 3 June 2013.[6][7]

In 2015 Lowe was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He and his elder brother Professor Michael Lowe were the first brothers to both be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.[8]

On 10 January 2017, Mercedes announced that Lowe had left the team, and entered a period of garden leave.[9]

Return to Williams (2017–2019)

Lowe returned to Williams as Chief Technical Officer on 16 March 2017.[10] He replaced Pat Symonds, who left the team at the end of 2016. Alongside his technical position, Lowe became a shareholder in the team.[11] The Williams cars under his supervision, FW41 and FW42, turned out to be largely uncompetitive and relegated Williams to the bottom of the Constructors' Championship in 2018 and 2019. On 6 March 2019 it was announced that Lowe would be taking a leave of absence due to personal reasons after there were many delays in the production of the Williams 2019 challenger.[12] On 25 June 2019, his leave was made permanent and Lowe left Williams with immediate effect.[13]

Formula One World Championships

Family

Lowe is married to screen actress, Anna Danshina. He has two children from a previous relationship: Noah Kelly and Finty Kelly.

His brother, Michael Lowe, is a British mechanical engineer.

Further reading
  • Kenward, Michael (March 2018). "A formula for success". Ingenia (74): 37–42. Retrieved 24 March 2018.

References
  1. "Mercedes AMG F1 - Team Management". mercedesamgf1.com. Archived from the original on 13 August 2018. Retrieved 11 September 2016.
  2. "New McLaren technical team looks back". GrandPrix.com. 27 January 2011. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
  3. "Team McLaren-Technical Team". mclaren.com. Archived from the original on 25 January 2008. Retrieved 15 February 2008.
  4. "'Line drawn' under F1 spy scandal". 5 March 2009. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
  5. "Lowe becomes McLaren's tech director". autosport.com. 27 January 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
  6. "Paddy Lowe to join Mercedes early". grandprix.com. 20 May 2013. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  7. "'Brawn not threatened by Lowe's arrival'". PlanetF1.com. 29 June 2013. Archived from the original on 3 July 2013. Retrieved 9 August 2013.
  8. Kenwood, Michael. "A formula for success". www.ingenia.org.uk. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  9. "Paddy Lowe to leave Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport". mercedesamgf1.com. 10 January 2017. Archived from the original on 25 January 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  10. "Ex-Mercedes F1 chief Paddy Lowe starts work at Williams". 2 May 2017.
  11. Chuck Penfold. "Paddy Lowe joins Williams as technical director". DW. Retrieved 30 August 2018.
  12. Galloway, James (8 March 2019). "Paddy Lowe takes 'leave of absence' from Williams F1". Sky Sports. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  13. Benson, Andrew (25 June 2019). "Williams technical chief Paddy Lowe officially leaves team". bbc.com. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
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