Precision Motorsport
Full Name | TRILUX AMG Precision Motorsport |
Base | Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany |
Founder(s) | Jeroen Krautmeir |
Team Principal(s) | Template:GBR Neil McEwan |
Technical Director | George West |
Current Lineup | |
Race Drivers | Template:GBR Dean Stoneman |
Pascal Wehrlein | |
Test Driver | Template:GBR George Russell |
Junior Drivers | / William Alatalo |
Template:SUI Grégoire Saucy | |
Template:AUT Klaus Vendetta |
Precision Motorsport, commonly shortened to Precision, is a Formula One racing team, based in Düsseldorf, Germany and racing under German licence. It's Formula One debut came at the 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix.
History (2016-2022)
In late 2015, Mercedes decided to depart from Formula One after their works team, which was founded in 2010 had failed to secure any world championships after its successful debut. With Mercedes also failing to capitalize on the new engine rules and competing as also-rans from 2012 to 2015, the team no longer proved viable for the company.
However, the sale of the team proved highly challenging, as the Mercedes-Benz board of directors decided that the team's entry and driver/personnel contracts and its original facilities at Brackley were to be sold separately in order to maximize profits. Furthermore, one condition for the sale of the entry was that its buyer would have to continue racing under German license in order for Mercedes-Benz to not lose brand popularity on the German market. With these steep requirements, no buyer for the entry was found. Former driver Jeroen Krautmeir, who had ended his career as an active driver earlier in 2015, in a joint effort with German lighting technology company TRILUX and Formula One Management, purchased the entry and a former Mercedes factory in Düsseldorf to enter the 2016 season.
Despite a significant part of the team's staff unwilling to relocate from Great Britain to Germany, the team was able to mount a proper entry, mostly because there was no need to worry about designing a car. The car that was to be the the Mercedes F1 W07 had already finished design in Brackley, as a significant amount of rule changes for 2016 required early design, and its intellectual property was part of the entry sold to Krautmeir. As, despite the perceived "failure" of its works teams, Mercedes was to remain as engine supplier in F1 to fulfill contract obligations, Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines, Ltd. provided its newest turbo power unit, the Mercedes PU104B. Drivers were Jules Bianchi, who despite the risk, loyally waited for the sale to be completed, a loyalty that would be rewarded and resulted in more than half a decade of service, over 25 pole positions and over 15 race wins. He was joined by former Mahindra driver Valtteri Bottas.
With a tidy package, Precision were expected to do well in its debut season despite the turmoil. After struggling in its debut outing, Precision quickly turned it around, winning their first race as a constructor at the Brazilian Grand Prix. This was just the beginning of a strong run, as Bianchi scored 11 consecutive points finishes, including his first pole at the second Brazilian Grand Prix and his debut win at the Pacific Grand Prix. With new personnel and sponsors incoming, Precision saw continuous success in 2016, ending the year as one of the strongest constructors and taking a win in each of the final three weekends of the year. Whilst neither driver could stop Lewis Hamilton from securing another world championship, they both finished in the top 10 of the drivers championship and Precision easily secured third place in the constructor's championship.
The prize money for the impressive 2016 campaign and a new sponsorship package by Mercedes-Benz, who had decided to sponsor Precision to an amount equal to 15 percent of the money invested in the former works team, was invested in further personnel, meaning that the new German squad nearly matched the personnel count of the Mercedes team in its second season. Retaining Jules Bianchi and Valtteri Bottas had the team believing it could improve in the WCC and perhaps even challenge for the championship. This dream was quickly crushed by the superior Caterham squad, whose CT05 turned out to be one of the most dominating cars in F1 history. Sebastian Vettel crushed the field on the way to his first world title, leaving Precision only able to pick up two wins. A one-year resurgence of Ferrari meant that Precision was not able to improve on its 3rd place in the championship. Still, the dreaded second year that F1 teams usually struggled with was a competitive one and two poles by Jules Bianchi later in the year confirmed that Precision was here to stay.
Near the start of the 2018 season, Precision announced having signed Dave Cassidy to a one-year contract. Throughout the early stages of the 2018 season, the championship looked like a three-way battle between Precision, Caterham and DGNgineering, as each team had two wins after the first three Grand Prix weekends. With DGN falling off in competition and Caterham getting an edge in the development battle, the team lost ground in the middle of the season, not helped by a number of retirements. Romain Grosjean and Esteban Ocon had outings with the team due to a Bianchi injury and a temporary benching of Cassidy, who had a troubled relationship with management from day one. However, in the later stages of the season, Jules Bianchi worked himself back up the order, helped by Sebastian Vettel losing championship points due to accumulating too many rule violations and having a nine-race streak without winning a Grand Prix. The championship went down to the wire and in the final race weekend of the season, Bianchi lost the title to Vettel, giving the German his second title.
Precision splashed the cash in 2019 to bring Diego Álvarez Torrente across to the team from the ARWS alongside Bianchi. Both drivers took six wins each in 2019 which secured them second in the Constructor's standings but they'd be denied by Sauber's pairing of Pastor Maldonado and Dean Stoneman.
2020 saw Precision as the team to beat in pre-season testing - with Torrente taking the flag at the second race of the season in Brazil. From the beginning, the die was set that it was set to be a two-horse race between Torrente and Bianchi - with Torrente's French teammate going on a good run to take a strong lead in the championship. Torrente was excluded from the Turkish Grand Prix after misconduct in Cyprus which saw his replacement Esteban Ocon take an unexpected win in his place. Torrente returned with a win in the following race in Finland but went on a dry spell until well into the second half of the season. Torrente ended his poor run with four wins in the final five races - the last win of the season managing to put Torrente at the top of the table for his first World Championship with a five point lead over Bianchi after the latter suffered a heartbreaking retirement with three laps to spare.
Jeroen Krautmeir stepped back from the Team Principal role on 14th December, 2020 in order to focus on Precision's aftermarket car parts division.
Ahead of the 2022 season, former Mucke Team Principal Neil McEwan was promoted to the Team Principal's role. He unfortunately inherited a terminally flawed hydrogen power unit, which was plagued with overheating problems that meant it had to be run at significantly reduced power during races.