Ruth Buscombe reveals what would make her drop the mic and return to a Formula 1 pitwall

The former Ferrari, Haas and Sauber strategist walked away from full-time F1 strategy after deciding she no longer wanted to spend years waiting for a genuinely competitive opportunity.

Now an F1 TV presenter and strategic consultant, Buscombe has expanded her experience across IndyCar, endurance racing and even Hollywood through her work on the F1 movie.

Speaking to the OLBG media team, she insists the door to an F1 comeback is far from closed: “If there's a seat on a pit wall where I can win championships, I'd love to do it. I didn't leave my role at Sauber because I fell out of love with strategy.

"I left because I didn't want to keep waiting years and years of my life for an opportunity to, for want of a better word, prove how good I was, and prove that I could win," explained Buscombe.

Buscombe joined Ferrari in 2012 as a Simulations Development Engineer before becoming Race Strategist from 2013 to 2015. After working trackside with Haas, she became Sauber's Head of Race Strategy. However, Fred Vasseur's departure for Ferrari changed how she viewed the team's prospects ahead of Audi's arrival.

Buscombe explained: “Under the trajectory that it was before Fred left - I'm very happy for Fred that he got his dream and he left - but sadly for us, I no longer believed that Audi was in a position, bearing in mind this was 2023 when I had to make the decision.

"I didn't think that an Audi that wasn't led by Fred could win championships in 2026. I didn't want to spend another five years of my life getting blocked out in Q1 and Q2 and not being in a position to fight for race wins in the championship.

“I'm so very proud of the podium that the guys got last year, but that's the thing for me, which is great, because it means that when Stefano and the team at F1 approach me to do strategy for F1, I've learned so much.”

Hoppakee, Zandvoort. 🧡🇳🇱

Thank you to everyone at #F1TV and @AppleTV at Track and Back at Biggin Hill for another brilliant weekend, and for letting me do what I love most: talk strategy (and say “It can *ALWAYS* rain at Zandvoort” another 200 times including to Toto on the way…

Her work since leaving Sauber has taken Buscombe well beyond Formula 1: “I also run my own strategic consultancy business, which means I've won the Indy 500 now twice. I'm trying to win the Strategy Triple Crown, which is something I invented.

“I've done 24-hour racing, I've done Le Mans, I've lost a 24-hour race at Daytona by 1.9 seconds to Porsche, so I understand the true pain of proper American racing now. I've done everything from iRacing to there.

"I'm learning a lot more, and I also got to basically be Brad Pitt's strategist. What strategist gets to put that on their CV? Le Mans, Indy, Apex GP. Being part of the F1 movie as a technical consultant was spectacular.

“And I know if I did go back to a team, I'd definitely go back to being a better strategist now than I was then. But as of right now, I'm very happy sat on my pitwall," she insisted.