Bradley Lord: Who is Mercedes' new F1 deputy team principal?

Mercedes announced a reshuffle of its Formula 1 team's managerial structure with Bradley Lord stepping up to become Toto Wolff's deputy team principal.

While Lord would be recognisable as a voice that has often stepped into Wolff's shoes to undertake Sky Sports UK's pitwall interview offering across a race weekend, the Briton typically remains as a background figure in the public sphere.

So who is he?

An unusual route

Lord is no stranger to Formula 1, having started in the championship 25 years ago as a press office intern at the former Benetton team in 2001.

That led to a promotion to senior press officer at the world championship-winning Renault team in 2006 - the same team, different guise - a role that he held for two years.

Crossing the stream dividing journalism and communications, Lord became features editor of the former F1 Racing magazine in 2008 before returning back to the other side of the water - first with Renault as head of communications in 2010 and then with Daimler AG - Mercedes' parent company - as communications manager in 2011.

That was a role that saw him oversee operations across all of Mercedes' motorsport ventures out of Stuttgart, before focusing on the Silver Arrows' F1 offering from 2013 as communications manager.

Bradley Lord Hungarian GP

His role became head of F1 communications a year later and then Mercedes-Benz Motorsport communications director in 2017, spanning the team's golden period in the series that saw it win seven drivers' titles and eight constructors' crowns.

2021 brought another title change, this time to become strategic communications director and then chief communications officer, which was dovetailed with a team representative role in 2024 that has largely been a launchpad for his new position.

As Mercedes explained, Lord has been "instrumental in shaping the team’s culture, communications, and wider strategic cohesion".

His face may be recognisable to F1's audience from the many garage shots of Wolff's emotional rollercoaster during the 2021 title battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

He will now be Wolff's right-hand man - if not already - filling a hole that had been left by the departure of former driver development director Jerome d'Ambrosio in 2024.