Meet Tom Stallard: Jenson Button’s Race Engineer, Former Olympic Rower

In Formula One, the relationship between a driver and their engineer is extremely important. A team can have the most talented driver and smartest engineer in the paddock, but if they don’t know how to work together, it’s very difficult to develop a car.

Perhaps that reliance on teamwork is why former Olympic rower Tom Stallard has been able to succeed as Jenson Button’s race engineer.

Button and Stallard have been working alongside each other since 2012, Button’s first year with McLaren. Part of the reason the two have been able to work together for such a long period of time, is their ability to recognize each other’s strengths.

In a recent video, “Mobil 1 The Grid” interviewed both Button and Stallard to find out more about why they work so well together.

The restrictions on radio communication referenced in the video have since been lifted. So we’ll have to monitor McLaren’s radio messages in Belgium to hear these two communicate in the heat of battle.

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Thumbnail photo via Jerome Miron/USA TODAY Sports Images