Julien Simon-Chautemps

Meet Julien Simon-Chautemps

Julien Simon-Chautemps is a highly experienced Formula 1 performance engineer, formerly the senior race engineer to World Champion Kimi Raikkonen and now a familiar face to fans around the world through the expert insights he provides on both F1TV and France’s Canal Plus television channel.

With 25 years experience as an engineer, team leader and manager, Julien worked in a number of motorsport categories prior to spending 14 seasons in Formula 1. That journey took him to 265 Grands Prix where he worked directly with drivers, fellow engineers and senior colleagues to deliver high performance outcomes.

As a senior race engineer he worked at the very sharp end of the sport, located on the pit wall during races, speaking directly with the drivers to problem solve in real time and execute successful race strategies.

Initially working for Toyota’s Formula 1 team based in Cologne Germany, Julien was lured to the start-up Caterham team before joining Lotus He remained with the team through its transition into becoming Renault’s Formula 1 contender, later moving to the Swiss Sauber Motorsport organisation which operated the Alfa Romeo Racing F1 team.

It was during his time at Alfa Romeo Racing that Julien became senior race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen, one of Formula 1’s fastest drivers, an enigmatic Finn who enjoyed a unique place in the hearts of fans worldwide. Under Julien’s guidance, Ferrari’s 2007 Formula 1 World Champion achieved some notable successes at Alfa Rome Racing prior to bringing his career to a close in 2021.

With Raikkonen retiring from Formula 1, Julien established his own motorsport consultancy service, JSC7 Engineering Ltd, providing a range of services including expert Formula 1 technical expertise to media broadcasters, motorsport engineering services, data analysis and race strategy software support.

An experienced public speaker, Julien’s detailed understanding of Formula 1 gives him the ability to cover a range of important topics which resonate with business leaders. This includes leadership, building and structuring high performance teams, while his senior race engineering roles working with drivers make him uniquely positioned to speak about motivation, developing a winning mindset and improved decision-making skills.

In parallel to high performance Julien can explain how Formula 1 teams and drivers manage the risks associated with the sport. Formula 1’s safety revolution has been truly remarkable, and it is engineers such as Julien who have led the way in improving vehicle design, team systems and processes in this data-driven environment. The ability to problem solve, using technical innovation to achieve sustained performance, is widely recognised as being one of Formula 1’s greatest strengths, and Julien is ideally place to explain how teams approach complex challenges each and every season.