Paddy Lowe
Founder & Director
Zero Petroleum
Paddy Lowe graduated in Engineering at the University of Cambridge in 1984. Joining Formula One in 1987, he is widely recognised for his achievements as an innovator and technical leader (Engineering Director / Technical Director at McLaren from 2005, Executive Director / Board Member at Mercedes from 2013, CTO at Williams from 2017). A score of 12 World Championships and 158 race wins on his watch is amongst the very highest in the history of the sport. He was Technical Director for the first 53 wins of Hamilton’s record-breaking career, worked in total with 11 World Champion drivers, pioneered innovative systems such as active suspension, traction control and driving simulators, and lead the Mercedes team to the most successful F1 season ever recorded: 19 wins from 21 races in 2016. Paddy is not only a technician, he is a strategist and inspirational leader of teams – recognised as such within several books including Alastair Campbell’s “Winners and How They Succeed”. Paddy’s talents in Formula One have now been translated to the world of clean energy where the company Zero Petroleum which he founded in 2020 alongside Professor Nilay Shah has already secured the Guinness World Records® title of “First Aircraft Powered by Synthetic Fuel”. Paddy is the recipient of multiple awards for his achievements including Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Honorary Fellowship of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.