Entry route
Joined an F1 team directly as a data/systems engineer and climbed data → performance → race engineer.
Highlights
One of Haas F1's earliest employees; performance/test race engineer through the team's 2016 debut
Performance engineer to Lando Norris at McLaren (2020-onwards), deputising as race engineer in 2023 (incl. Norris paternity-leave races and 2023 podiums)
Rose to Head of F1 Testing at McLaren and worked in the McLaren Driver Development Programme
Took his first permanent race-engineer seat at Sauber in 2025 with rookie Gabriel Bortoleto, reuniting from the driver-development programme
Research notes
Driver pairing (Bortoleto) and Haas->McLaren->Sauber/Audi career path confirmed across Wikipedia, Motorsport.com, PlanetF1 and Pit Debrief. Nationality (Spanish) and the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid / TU Delft / Mondragon (MSc Motorsport Engineering) education confirmed by Wikipedia, with UPM dates (2002-2009) corroborated by the public LinkedIn profile. Public LinkedIn hides job dates (shown as dashes), so Haas (2015-2019) and McLaren (2020-2024) year boundaries are drawn from Wikipedia and should be treated as approximate. NOTE: do not confuse with Pau Rivera, who was Bortoleto's F2 race engineer at Invicta Racing;
Lopez is the F1 race engineer. years_to_race_engineer computed from 2015 F1 entry (Haas) to 2025 first full/permanent race-engineer seat (=10), though Lopez performed deputy race-engineer duties at McLaren in 2023. No documented radio nickname found, so aka left empty.
Education
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
Degree · Mechanical Engineering
2002-2009
Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)
Study / exchange · Engineering
Mondragon Unibertsitatea
Master's · Motorsport Engineering