Lewis Hamilton ally behind five F1 title wins is now masterminding Max Verstappen comeback

Think of the crucial people that helped Lewis Hamilton win many of his F1 titles and you might skip a few names until you get to a certain F1 stalwart.

Building Hamilton's success, his father Anthony, Ron Dennis, Toto Wolff, Niki Lauda, Peter 'Bono' Bonnington, are just some of the names that jump out and that's because these are the faces you typically saw on a TV screen.

But one of those behind the scenes, at least in more recent times, in assisting the now Ferrari driver become a multiple world champion is Phil Prew - who can take credit for helping pave the way for at least five of the Brit's F1 world titles.

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Phil Prew's F1 CV

Prew has been in the F1 game a long time. Having studied at the University of Southampton between 1990 and 1993, gaining a first-class degree in mechanical engineering he worked as a project engineer at Ricardo before joining McLaren in May of 1997 as a vehicle dynamics engineer for the rest of the year.

This was a McLaren team who had just hired Adrian Newey too, and for the next three seasons, that included two world championships with Mika Hakkinen, he worked as a data analysis engineer.

For the 2001 season he was promoted to race engineer for David Coulthard, a year in which the Scot picked up his best world championship finish with a second place to Michael Schumacher.

Once Coutlhard left McLaren at the end of 2004, Prew was then race engineer for Juan Pablo Montoya for one and-a-half seasons before the Colombian walked out of the team. Prew would then engineer his replacement Pedro de la Rosa for the rest of 2006.

McLaren got two new drivers for the 2007 but rather than Fernando Alonso it was Lewis Hamilton who Prew worked with for the next three campaigns, including being his race engineer when Hamilton won his first world title in 2008.

After 2009, Prew stayed with McLaren but was no longer Hamilton's race engineer as he moved up to a principal race engineer for three seasons, a role that would keep him on the pitwall and working more with both drivers. At the end of 2012, Hamilton moved to Mercedes and Prew became chief engineer at McLaren.

Prew held this position for three seasons but by the end of the 2015 season he left McLaren after nearly 18 years to reunite with Hamilton at Mercedes, where he would also work as a chief engineer.

It's a position he would hold for eight years until the end of 2023, where he would oversee the development and trackside support of the Mercedes power units that were the class of the field in the 2010s. During Prew's time at Mercedes, Hamilton won four straight titles between 2017 and 2020.

Defection to Red Bull

Then the bombshell announcement came. Christian Horner could hardly contain his delight as he confirmed that he had convinced Prew to join the Red Bull Power Trains project.

One of Hamilton and Mercedes' key backroom staff was defecting to their big rivals in Red Bull to help Max Verstappen.

The announcement came in 2022, with Horner saying: “I’m delighted that Phil is going to be joining the team and he has a phenomenal track record.

“He has been a key component of Mercedes’ recent success and, again, it is another statement of intent of where we want to be with the power unit.

“I think we have assembled great strength and depth within the business and it’s fantastic to see it really coming together and coming to life.

“Phil’s one of a few key signings recently that add to the very talented group of people that we have already assembled.

After starting as a performance application director for six months until July 2024, Prew became technical operations director in a role he would hold until the end of last season.

Following another promotion, he is the engineering director and a key part of how Red Bull's Power Trains project has seen them officially be recognised as the best engine in F1 according to the FIA's ADUO verdicts.

Phil Prew now part of the Verstappen comeback story

Having already helped Verstappen win one world title in 2024, Prew is already establishing himself as part of the new era at Red Bull, and he was present in the team's celebration in the pitlane as Max Verstappen won the Singapore Grand Prix at the weekend.

Red Bull may have taken a long time to get up to speed in 2026 but they are now back after winning the last two grands prix.

It's in no small part because one of Hamilton's biggest allies backstage is now one of Verstappen's.

Is it any wonder the four-time world champion never really pushed hard for a Red Bull exit this summer when he perhaps can see the new project the team are putting together?

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Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

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