Mia Bickerton-Jones journey into motorsports

Mia Bickerton Jones worked at Williams Formula one team for three years now . In Williams F1 team  she worked with them at age 17 as a composites apprentice , eventually went for 5 weeks until she  was 18 .“I have had a wonderful experience working with them over the past 3 years and look forward to hopefully many more to come, especially after winning 7th place in the constructors this year,” Mia says. Mia is in her final year of the apprentice and she is really wants to be a data engineer and using all her weekends and holiday with second jobs for data with smaller teams

PHOTO CUSTODY TO MIA BICKERTON-JONES.

She also works for Hi-tech, Hillspeed and Richardson Racing in a little over a year. In 2022 she began working with Hi-Tech. She began to learn about race engineering and data and so was just there to learn more about what an engineer does on a race weekend, tire pressures, brake balance, driver coaching and how to work with data.Mia  experience and settled in for her  that she wanted to pursue  a career in Motorsport. Before this experience all Mia  knew was that she was enjoying looking at it and reading books about race engineering as a hobby. “I knew this thanks to my uncle Gavin who has helped me a lot throughout the beginning of my career,” Mia says. 

Mia  worked with Richardson Racing from march this year until August when she had to leave for health concern. “I thoroughly enjoyed this as it meant I got to see a lot of the European circuits and again learn how to work a race weekend, how to use data, get the best out of a car throughout a racing series and driver coaching, Mia said.” “This was in the Porsche GB and Benelux series which were leading Benelux and second in GB when I left.” Since she has been in the ops room and simulator with Williams, they and especially James Vowles have been especially encouraging of her  learning and developing there.

Mia Bickerton-Jones with Robert De Haan. PHOTO CUSTODY TO MIA BICKERTON-JONES.

While working for the teams the atmosphere in the garage at these events is lively and everybody in the team pulled together for a collaborative result. “I enjoy working in an environment like this where everyone works together to use their individual specialist skills to set up a race car for high performance and achieve a result that everyone can be proud of, ” Mia says. Mia has worked with GB3 doing one of the races the team won constructors and drivers championship with Luke Browning. “I managed to learn everything I could about each of these specialist skills which allowed me to further decide that this wasn't just a hobby for me but something I would love to pursue as a career,” Mia exclaims. 

Mia has three years of experience working with various teams on various projects. In addition to gaining experience, she had fun collaborating with the teams. Mia's eyes were opened to the racing industry by the data in each stream and its potential to significantly affect a race car's drive ability and performance. “I have especially learned this since moving into data in formula 1 where the data available is overwhelming with quantity and quality, Mia says”. She  was also interested to learn how not every driver benefits from the same setup despite being in the same car and the importance of listening to their personal needs and wants to achieve the best results.