Born on the 29th April 1971 in Western Australia, Sam Michael grew up in the nation's capital of Canberra.

Sam studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of New South Wales and started working for a Formula Holden team (Australia's equivalent of F3000) as a student.

Entering Formula One with Team Lotus in 1993 as a design engineer, Sam worked on data aquisition and lap simulation for the team.

When Team Lotus folded in 1994 Sam moved to Jordan as a design/data engineer for the test and race team.

1996 Sam was promoted to Head of Research and Development and later engineered Ralf Schumacher.

1999 and 2000 saw Sam as Jordan Race Engineer with Heinz-Harald Frentzen who won the French and Italian GP.

In 2001 Sam joins WilliamsF1 as Chief Operations Engineer. His interests include running, surfing and, of course, motor racing