"Hard work always pays off in the end!" - Amiel Lindesay '90
Monday, 8 May 2023
Form 3 students who walk through the doors to the Great Hall for the first time are often apprehensive about what the next five years will bring during their time at Auckland Grammar School. During those first few weeks, each new Form 3 cohort sits entrance exams, they take part in trials for sporting and extracurricular teams, and their Term 1 examinations determine their classes for the rest of the year.

This healthy competition was something that Old Boy Amiel Lindesay '90 is thankful for. "Those first days of Form 3 and the pressure to move up classes was healthy for me and made me really push to get the most out of the situation."

Starting at Grammar in 1990, Amiel strived to be the best he could be, and recalls with pride his days with the Cycling A team as a Form 5 student, becoming National Champions in 1992. "I look back at those Cycling days with great pride and the self-discipline and positive mentality helped me achieve and succeed later on in life."

It was this self-discipline and positive mindset that motivated Amiel to push himself and work hard throughout his tenure at the School. He was adamant that once he graduated, his career path would involve working on the car scene, having grown up watching motorsport with his dad, Phil. "I used to love going to any races as a kid. Australian touring cars was the highlight back then and when they came to New Zealand, I got to see them at the Pukekohe raceway - it was amazing!"

Achieving top marks in Form 6 allowed Amiel to graduate a year early and start his career, although he was advised to travel a somewhat more traditional pathway. "The Careers Advisor said I should look for a path to take using Accounting as the way forward. But I really pushed to make sure that this [racing] was going to happen to the highest possible level - the fascination with racing cars and Formula 1 was far greater than any other option."

Using all available resources he had to push into the racing scene, Amiel started from the bottom and worked his way up through university and an apprenticeship with Newmarket Nissan, where the support of his superiors opened a number of opportunities for him. "My bosses trusted my skills from the very beginning, and they allowed me to learn different aspects of the trade, from automatic gearbox rebuilds to Diesel engine rebuilds to electrical diagnostics."

With these new skills under his belt and working at Formula 1 remaining the end goal, an opportunity presented itself for Amiel to start in a small race team in Europe. "As soon as my apprenticeship was complete and I had my certificate in Automotive Engineering, I left for Europe to pursue my dream of a career in motorsport. The money and living standards were less than ideal, but it didn't bother me - I had my sights on Formula 1 and getting there you have to invest in lower classes/standards for some time."

Just six years after leaving Auckland Grammar, Amiel began his Formula 1 career as a mechanic at Jenzer Motorsport, based in Bern, Switzerland. Arriving in January in the middle of the European winter and staying in the aforementioned less-than-ideal living conditions was somewhat of a shock to Amiel.

"The first year at Jenzer was hard. We worked in a transformed chicken shed with no toilets and no proper heating. Travelling from race to race, many of the tracks we visited didn't have hot water for showers. There were plenty of times during that first year I thought about coming home, but come summer time in Switzerland life started to change and I met some locals and began to understand the mentality of the Swiss. I could not wait for the start of the next season!"

Having moved up through the ranks at Jenzer and moving to BMW Sauber as their chief mechanic, Amiel moved to Germany in 2011, spending two years with BMW Motorsport. It was his connections at BMW Sauber that helped secure his current role - as Head of Operations at Porsche Motorsport - where he met ex-McLaren Formula 1 boss Andreas Seidl who offered him a role at Porsche.

"Currently I lead the complete operations for Formula E and help develop the car home based and testing wise, which gives me more time to spend with my family. After 23 years racing around the world, the time comes to ease a little on the life of car racing and living out of a suitcase!"

Even the world of motorsport was affected when the COVID-19 global pandemic hit in early 2020, but Amiel says this actually worked in their favour. "Some good things did come out of the pandemic as we are a lot more flexible now in the way we race/test. We can run a race car with system engineers working from home with complete control over the software of the car - they can stay at home and their job does not change at all." While racing did shut down for six months, Porsche was still able to operate with a reduced output and focused more on the digital side of racing.

Amiel has had some incredible success while working at Porsche, but it was working together alongside Andreas and the 24 Hours of Le Mans race that stands out most for him. "My working relationship with Andreas at Porsche led to three consecutive wins at Le Mans and three World Championships in 2015, 2016 and 2017. It was incredibly satisfying but was a huge workload to achieve that!"

Working as part of the operational crew for the campaign is something that Amiel will never forget. "We could influence the race positions of our cars from being innovative with pitstops. Whether the car was fast or not is largely out of our hands, but when we are even five seconds faster in a pitstop over a 24-hour period with 33 pitstops, this makes nearly a whole lap's difference in the race! It makes me proud to look back and see what we achieved inside a big manufacture like Porsche."

Amiel has been able to achieve his dream career by working hard, right from his first days as a student at Auckland Grammar, something that all students should aspire to. "Follow your dreams, no matter what - your hard work will pay off in the long term!"