Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman Says F1 Engineering Beats NASA: ‘They Smoke Us’

Reid Wiseman commanded NASA’s first crewed trip around the moon in more than 50 years, and he says Formula 1 engineering is now ahead of NASA’s. The new Mercedes ambassador made the claim to ESPN at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, ahead of the United States Grand Prix. ESPN published the interview October 28.

When asked how NASA compares with Formula 1, Wiseman gave a blunt answer. “Oh, they crush us. I mean, the level of engineering here, they smoke us.”

Mercedes announced Wiseman as a team ambassador on October 21, about six months after the Artemis II crew splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The mission launched April 1, and the crew flew 252,756 miles from Earth, farther than any humans had traveled before.

In his new role, Reid Wiseman works with team partners and guests to explain what spaceflight and racing share.

Reid Wiseman Explains Why NASA Prizes Backups While F1 Chases Every Gain

Wiseman laid out his reasoning to ESPN while surrounded by Mercedes engineers, mechanics, media staff, and performance coaches. “In spaceflight, what we really need is tried and true, redundancy, and we can accept a little bit of a mass penalty,” he said. In plain terms, a mass penalty means extra weight, which NASA accepts in return for backup systems.

Wiseman then described what he saw around him. “Here, they’re just pushing everything to the next level, and just every single thing is … it’s not just the cars, it’s the humans,” he said. “You know, everybody’s walking around with WHOOP straps, and monitoring everything about themselves.”

“They’re all basically athletes,” he added. “They’re all going all in at all times. I love the way they deal with human performance and mechanical performance.”

Reid Wiseman also sees a different edge in the cockpit, and he used Mercedes drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli to explain it. “What is a little different for us is I have a crew of four people that are together in the spacecraft and working to try to make this mission the best it can be,” he said. “In these cars, it is George [Russell] going all in, killer instinct … Kimi [Antonelli] going all in, killer instinct.”

He sees a lesson for NASA’s ground crews, too. “Astronauts have to put a pretty good premium on our own health and physical conditioning, because we’re going to be weightless, and our bones and our muscles are going to waste during the mission,” he said. “So we put a big premium on that.”

“We don’t put as big of a premium on our support team and making sure they are at their highest level, and I think we can raise their level of expertise,” he continued. Later, looking around the Mercedes operation, he added: “Because you look around in this team, everybody is fit, they’re hungry, they’re getting after it, and I think we can elevate the team [at NASA].”

Why Reid Wiseman Feels at Home With Mercedes

Wiseman’s F1 ties go back to 2023, when he and Artemis II crewmate Jeremy Hansen walked the Austin grid on October 22. In May, he handed Lando Norris the winner’s plaque after the Miami sprint.

Mercedes made the link official with the October 21 announcement. “I’ve always been struck by how much Formula 1 and space exploration have in common,” Wiseman said, according to Crash.net. “In both worlds, success is never about one individual.”

Mercedes chief commercial officer Richard Sanders echoed the point in the team’s statement. “There are remarkable similarities between F1 and human spaceflight,” he said. “Both require brilliant people working together, absolute trust in those around you, and the courage to push into the unknown.”

Wiseman admitted he once wondered what to expect from the “terrifying Toto Wolff,” ESPN reported. “What I noticed as we were here, if you look around this place, there’s no flash; it’s just professionalism,” he said. He later added: “The culture here always comes from the top.”

Wiseman also met Antonelli in 2024, when the then 17-year-old toured Johnson Space Center. “When I met him, the first thing I thought was how astonishingly humble and down to earth he was,” Wiseman said. “But at the same time, he’s a little goofy, which I love, but he’s just curious about everything.”

Antonelli, now 20, can clinch the title at the Mexico City Grand Prix on November 1 with a ninth-place finish. He leads Russell by 123 points with five races left.

Wiseman hears spaceflight in Antonelli’s radio chats with race engineer Peter Bonnington. “I chuckle at the way Bono and Kimi talk [on the radio],” he said. “It feels exactly like us in space, where we’ll say something to the engineering team, and then when we unkey the mic, the engineering team will be like, ‘they don’t know what they’re talking about’, and then they’ll come up with an answer for us, and they’ll send it back.”

“I love hearing that,” he continued. “I love it when the engineers and the drivers joke around on the radio, and you can just tell. It’s just a great relationship.”

The reach of Artemis II hit Wiseman only after he got home. At an airport in Europe, a father asked if he was Reid Wiseman, and his 10-year-old daughter from the Philippines ran over and hugged him, ESPN reported. Wiseman gave her a medallion from his backpack.

The four crew members have compared notes since. “And we all have this common feeling of we’re starting to understand that we experienced this mission, but Earth experienced it,” Wiseman said. “And now we’re loving hearing the stories.”

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