The Alex Wurz you don't know: F1 driver of many talents is ideal for top job

You think you know Alex Wurz? Think again. Yes, he raced in 69 Formula 1 grands prix between 1997 and 2007, for Benetton, McLaren and Williams, bagging three podium finishes but no wins, and he tackled the Le Mans 24 Hours nine times between 1996 and 2015, in Porsches, Peugeots and Toyotas, winning it outright twice. In 1996 he became the youngest ever outright winner, at 22, which record he still holds 28 years later; and in 2009 he won it again. But you know all that.

You may also know that he won races in Formula Ford, Formula 3, FIA GTs, Le Mans Series, American Le Mans Series, International Le Mans Cup, and WEC; and that, as a full-time test driver for McLaren between 2001 and 2005, and for Williams in 2006, in the days when F1 teams used to field separate test squads that ran long and frequent programmes at Barcelona, Jerez and Valencia, he drove more testing miles than anyone except Ferrari’s extremely long-serving warhorse, Luca Badoer. You may even know that he won the BMX world championship in 1986, aged 12. But all that is in his past. So, what about his present? Well, he is extremely busy, and he is girding himself for a big milestone: on February 15 he will turn 50.

His future, from a professional point of view, like that of all of us, depends on how he can deploy his experience and expertise to suit best his options and opportunities. His experience and expertise as a racing driver constitute a gilt-edged curriculum vitae – obviously. But there are quite a few other ex-drivers of his approximate vintage whose CVs are not dissimilar. However, Alex has many more strings to his bow than merely racing experience and expertise.

He is a co-founder and shareholder of the revolutionary new Electric Scooter Championship. He co-founded and ran, with his friend and fellow countryman Markus Rainer, a mountain bike team, Rainer-Wurz, which won World Cups. He is a talented and popular F1 commentator/analyst/pundit for ORF (Austria’s public TV broadcaster). He has served as an official FIA F1 driver steward. He has driven the official FIA F1 Medical Car. He has managed the careers of top-class racing drivers. He is a recruiter/headhunter working behind the scenes for F1 teams, specialising in sourcing and placing senior engineers.

With his father Franz Wurz, the rallycross legend, he runs Test and Training International, which provides driver education, road safety consultancy, race driver training, and race track design services on a global basis; its current race track design and associated architecture projects exceed US$1 billion (£793m) in potential billings, a significant proportion of which are under construction.

He has worked in senior team management roles in F1 (Williams) and WEC (Toyota), and has been offered but has declined team principal-level roles for Manor (now defunct) and Lotus (now Alpine). He has conceived and/or advised on the spec and design of many technical innovations in F1 – for example gearshift beeps played through drivers’ earpieces (simple but clever), centrifugal clutches (now outlawed but highly effective before that), dual-clutch start-line systems (ditto), pitlane speed-limiter mods (some of them used by every F1 team), and inductor rim heating (where waste heat generated from brakes is transferred to wheel rims then radiated through to tyres, increasing their operating temperature) which he pioneered with Ed Wood (chief designer) when they were together at Williams, understanding before others the significance of the atypical thermal sensitivity of Pirelli’s tyres.

And, last but very far from least, since 2014 he has held the position of chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, whose membership comprises current and recent F1 race drivers, reserve drivers and test drivers, and whose remit is to represent them whenever and wherever a united front is necessary or expedient, especially but not solely in matters of driver safety.

He is devoted to his family – his wife Julia and his sons Felix, Charlie and Oscar. He is extremely fit, regularly taking one of his many mountain bikes on gruelling treks on and over the hills near Monaco. He is fascinated by international business, finance and politics, and is just as likely to send me WhatsApp messages about Berkshire Hathaway, the Nikkei index or Brexit as about issues pertaining to F1 or motorsport. His public speaking is fluent, thoughtful, compelling and witty in both German and English. He is a great interviewee – on TV and in ‘print’. His thinking is naturally strategic, tactical and lateral, which are related but different things. He knows how to bend his agile and fecund mind to thorny problems so as to come up with whip-smart solutions. He is successful, he must coin a pretty penny, but perhaps he is almost too busy. His reach and influence in global motorsport are profound and prodigious. You could say that he has as many fingers as there are pies.

Ten years ago, over dinner at Fonda Europa (a favourite hotel-restaurant for normal F1 folk rather than high rollers), in Granollers, near the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where he and I had supped just a little more Rioja than was perhaps strictly necessary, I made so bold as to ask him a deliberately cheeky question: “What are you going to do when you grow up, geeza?” (I do not remember why we call each other ‘geeza’, but we do.) He chuckled – actually ‘giggle’ is a better word for the surprisingly high-pitched sound he makes when he is amused. Yes, I was teasing him, but what I meant, which he understood instantly, was what I have frequently said to him in the past and often say to him still. It is this: if he were ever to knuckle down and do just one seriously big motor sport job, he would be extremely good at it. But he tends to underestimate his potential to land or even to discharge seriously big motor sport jobs, which is a pity, because there is no valid reason for his reluctance.

I have one such seriously big motor sport job in mind, and I am not the first person to opine that he would be extremely good at it. The next FIA presidential election will take place in 2025. The incumbent is not universally popular, I think we can agree. Alexander Georg Wurz would be a strong candidate to replace him, perhaps as soon as next year, or, if not, in 2029. Go for it, geeza!