Simone Resta, a former Ferrari designer, has been announced as the new director of strategic development at Mercedes in 2025. Resta, who previously collaborated with James Allison during his time at Ferrari, will play a crucial role in Mercedes’ restructuring efforts as they seek to regain their competitive edge after several years of declining performance due to the resurgence of Red Bull. The official date of his arrival to the team has not yet been provided.
In addition to Resta’s hiring, Enrico Sampo will also make the move from Ferrari to Mercedes, taking on the role of head of performance software applications. The team has also filled the position of performance director with an internal appointment, David Nelson, following the departure of Loic Serra, who was hired by Ferrari last year.
Resta’s impressive experience at Ferrari brings hope for Mercedes’ future prospects. He joined Ferrari as chief designer in 2014, under Allison’s leadership, and served as the team’s technical director during that time. Under Resta’s guidance, Ferrari produced highly competitive F1 designs in 2017 and 2018, considered the best designs to come out of Maranello in the last decade. Both cars started the season as the fastest in F1, and Sebastian Vettel led both championships for a significant part of the season. However, Ferrari’s performance ultimately suffered due to reliability issues and errors from both the team and Vettel.
After stints at Sauber and a brief return to Ferrari, Resta joined Haas, a Ferrari-affiliated team, in 2021. He left Haas after the departure of team principal Guenther Steiner last winter.
Avec Mercedes faisant face à des défis en termes de compétitivité après l’introduction de nouvelles règles techniques en 2022, le chef d’équipe, Toto Wolff, espère que Resta pourra contribuer de manière significative à combler l’écart de plus en plus grand, notamment avec plus de réglementations techniques à l’horizon.
