'I would have liked to have shown more in Formula 1, but that's life'

In 2015, when Lewis Hamilton won his third title and Max Verstappen made his debut in the series, Stevens also competed in his first and only full season in Formula 1. With the uncompetitive Manor Marussia car, there was little for the Brit to achieve. A 13th-place finish at his home race was his best result that season.

“At that point, it was hard to show anything,” Stevens recalls of that period. “No one knew if you were doing the world's best job or a terrible job. It's very hard to see that. Actually, my stint in Formula 1 compared to who you could compare to, it was pretty good.”

After that one season, Stevens’ time as an active Formula 1 driver was over, just as Manor's time in the sport came to an end a year later. The then 24-year-old decided not to cling to the hope of continuing his F1 career, even if that meant going against the odds.

“It's hard to continuously open doors,” he says, reflecting on that period. “And I just wanted to make a decision where there's a clear trajectory of getting to being a professional racing driver. And at that point, it was incredibly hard to move around within Formula 1. And if you weren't involved in a major manufacturer, it's incredibly hard to pick up those opportunities.”

Still, Stevens did not lose touch completely with the highest level of motorsport. Since 2018, the Brit has been a highly valued member of McLaren’s team behind the scenes. He spends around 50 days a year working as one of the test and simulator drivers for last year's constructors’ world champions, who have just been dethroned.

“So still I'm part of that world, let's say, from a development point of view and understanding of race cars, how to develop, and what makes them go fast. So I still have that element. I still drive a couple of days every year for McLaren on their TPC programme. I'm still part of that flow,” Stevens explains.

After his Formula 1 career, Stevens made a move into endurance racing, a branch of motorsport in which he has proved very successful. “It's now more than ten years since I was there. Obviously, endurance racing wasn't as big as what it is now, but I think you could see the vision of where endurance racing was going. It's just where you see much more professional drivers.

And it has paid off: Stevens has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice in his class. Not in the top Hypercar category, though, that remains the ultimate dream the current Cadillac driver wants to fulfil: “That's the same goals that Jota has. It's the same goals that GM has. So we're all aligned on what we want to achieve, and we think we're on the right path to ultimately achieve that,” he says.

Stevens has won two Hypercar races in the WEC, the ultimate proof that his decision to pursue endurance racing was the right one. “You know, now as a more experienced driver, of course, you look back and some decisions you made along the way you would do differently to ultimately achieve of being in those top teams in Formula One.”

Stevens certainly has no regrets about leaving Formula 1 so soon. “We felt we were making the right decisions at that time. Looking back with experience, you can clearly see if you did this, if you did that, everyone could say the same. So no.

“It's much more of a team environment here [in WEC]. You've got two, three drivers per car. You feed off each other. You go through the experience of the highs and lows together. So it's cool. I feel very settled where I've ended up. Of course, as I said, I would have loved to have been in a position to show what I can do in Formula 1 at those points, because I believe I could have done that. But that's life,” Stevens says.