Richard Hopkins

Richard Hopkins's Biography

Richard Hopkins is the former Head of Operations for the 4-time consecutive World Championship winning Red Bull Formula One Team and is currently a Professor of Practice at UNSW.

Richard turned his boyhood dream into reality and became involved in Formula One at the age of 16.

Having been presented with an opportunity to join the Brabham Formula One team under Bernie Ecclestone’s leadership he was key team member from 1987 until 1991.

In the early nineties Richard joined the world renowned McLaren team. It was in this role that he started travelling the world on the Grand Prix circuit as a mechanic, where he experienced the taste of winning for the first time. His role at McLaren also had him working alongside drivers such as Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Mika Hakkinen, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen & Lewis Hamilton.

At the beginning of the new millennium Richard shifted to a new role in the McLaren team, driving the operational side of the team. The result was one the industry that had never seen before, recognising greater efficiencies within the business, that ultimately produced better results on the track.

In 2007, Richard and was asked to join the young but extremely enthusiastic Red Bull Formula One team, who at the time of his appointment, only had two 3rd place trophies in their cabinet to show for their 3 seasons of racing.

Richard was given a very clear and simple mandate on joining: “Make us into a team of winners”!

He took his depth of experience, dogged will to win and exceptional organisational skills to transform a team of over 800 from competitors into winners, and ultimately multiple World Champions.

By the end of the 2015, Richard had been involved in 509 Grand Prix’ spanning 28 seasons and had been instrumental in the Red Bull Formula One Teams 50 Grand Prix victories and now 169 trophies that sit in a much larger cabinet.

2015 also saw Richard move from the UK to Sydney with his Australian wife and daughter.

Richard is now a Professor of Practice at the University of New South Wales as well as running his own High-Performance coaching business. This is in addition to his passion of engineering cultural and environmental change.

Richard has a new exciting venture that aims to revolutionise electric vehicle transport by producing the world’s first non-plug-in solar powered electric vehicle. Perpetual power. The Holy Grail.

His personal story is fascinating, or so he’s been told, his career is one of creating team cultures along with a huge amount of determination and resilience to succeed and his insight into the high-performance world of Formula One is transferable to any industry.

Clients & Partners:

University of New South Wales

IBM

Optus

Zurich

Seven West Media (Channel 7)

Swimming Australia – Olympic Swim Team

Laing O’Rourke

Rabobank

Melbourne Stars

iSelect

SMEC

Institute of Management Consultants

Engineers Australia

F1 in Schools Programme – Re-engineering Australia