Ed Hemsworth strides through the Red Bull Racing hospitality unit on a chilly Las Vegas night, blending seamlessly into the polo-clad army of mechanics, engineers and executives who make up one of the most successful teams in the history of Formula 1. But Hemsworth’s role — Race Parts and Lifing Controller — is a linchpin, an invisible yet indispensable thread that ties the factory to the track. The job of managing the thousands of components used to build a $15 million car demands an obsessive level of attention to detail and a deep love for the sport. “It’s only looking after little bits of metal and carbon,” Hemsworth told me, “but when you add it all together, it could be the one thing that stops you from putting an engine on the car.”
Much like Max Verstappen, the driver Hemsworth has worked with over the past four years, F1 wasn’t just a career aspiration — it was a family legacy. And like Verstappen, Hemsworth's father instilled in him a relentless drive for perfection. “My dad was the testing manager at Arrows in the '90s,” Hemsworth recalled. “I put all of [my success] down to what he taught us as kids: when you're 12 years old raking grass in the garden and he tells you the piles are too far apart, you're like ‘what the hell?’ But now I look back on it and realize I've gotten to where I am by being a bit of a perfectionist and a workaholic.”
