★F1前賓士車隊首席設計師約翰．歐文和屢獲殊榮記者喬伊．德烏爾索聯手撰寫
★英國Quercus於五家出版社競價中取得版權
★預計2026年底完稿

From university dropout and classic-car enthusiast to PhD engineer and architect of the sport’s most dominant era, John Owen gives the inside track from within the workshop that built the car that conquered the sport, as well as the rise, fall, and recent rise again of Mercedes F1

For sixteen years, John Owen sat at the heart of the most successful team in modern Formula One history. As Chief Designer, he helped build the cars that delivered eight consecutive Constructors' Championships and seven Drivers' Championships, overseeing the technical organization that powered the careers of Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button and later George Russell.

This is not another F1 memoir. Rather than focusing on glamorous paddock life, celebrity or race-day drama, Chief Designer takes readers inside the engineering rooms, leadership meetings and technical debates that determined victory and defeat. It reveals how an organization at the very top sustained excellence for almost a decade, why it ultimately lost its way, and how it rebuilt itself to return to the front.

At its heart, the book is a story about leadership under pressure. Owen offers a rare account of how Mercedes built a culture of delegated responsibility and "leadership by intent", empowering engineers to make critical decisions and fostering the environment that underpinned one of sport’s greatest dynasties. These lessons extend far beyond Formula One, making the book as much a business and leadership title as a sports book.

Crucially, Owen also tackles the questions F1 fans remain obsessed with: what happened inside Mercedes after the controversial 2021 Abu Dhabi finale, why the all-conquering team suddenly collapsed in 2022, and how years of technical, organizational and psychological challenges eventually turned success into failure. His account is candid, authoritative and often surprising.

John Owen is a British aerodynamicist. He was Chief Designer of the Mercedes Formula One team when it won more consecutive championships than any other in the sport's history. Owen was integral to producing the car that won for eight straight seasons, during an era in which the sport was thrust into the global cultural mainstream like never before.

Joey D’Urso is a journalist writing about the intersections of football, politics & power. From 2020 to 2024 he reported on football as investigations writer for The Athletic, and from 2024 to 2026 he was a senior data journalist at The Times. His investigations have been cited many times in Parliament and he has been shortlisted in the Sports Journalism category at the British Journalism Awards twice, as well as shortlisted for writer of the year by the Football Writers’ Association.