Manchester United are in the middle of a massive organizational rebuild, which has nothing to do with new signings, new tactics, or a new manager on the touchline, but instead the big shift is happening behind closed doors in offices and meeting rooms, and the person driving it is someone who once sat behind Lewis Hamilton’s F1 data streams.
His name is Michael Sansoni, who comes straight from the fast-paced world of F1Â and might be the most influential new hire at Old Trafford.
Michael Sansoni’s Journey From F1 Garage to Old Trafford Offices
Sansoni joined Mercedes back in 2014, right as the team began its long stretch of success in F1’s hybrid era, where he started as a placement student in the engineering department, but he did not stay in the junior ranks for long.
Over the next decade, he took on several roles, first in simulation, then trackside, and eventually as Senior Performance Engineer. From 2023 to early 2025, he worked directly with Hamilton as his Performance Engineer, which meant studying car data, tuning setups, and solving problems under pressure.
In F1, everything is measured down to the tiny details as engineers track how a brake disc heats up through a corner, how a tire loses grip lap after lap, and how a driver reacts to the smallest changes, and Manchester United clearly believed that Sansoni brought something football had not used enough.
A few months ago, the club announced him as its new Director of Data, and the role is already proving powerful as he reports directly to new CEO Omar Berrada and has been tasked with transforming how United uses data and artificial intelligence across the club.
Sansoni Rebuilding Manchester United Using Critical Data
United’s data approach had fallen behind, and even part-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe admitted the club had been stuck with old systems and old habits, but that changed quickly as soon as Sansoni joined the football giants.
Inside the club, people say the shift has been huge as United’s data and analytics department is moving faster, making sharper decisions, and supporting more parts of the football side. Sansoni mentioned on LinkedIn that early improvements played a part in the signings of Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, and these were due to new tools and models that United simply did not have before.
All of these added new systems that blend machine learning, performance tracking, and predictive modelling, which mirror methods used in F1. Alongside Sansoni’s arrival, the club added specialists in medicine, nutrition, soft tissue care, and performance coaching, and it feels more organized now.
What is interesting is that very little of this is happening in public, as there are no big slogans or loud announcements, but more of a slow rebuild, which primarily focuses on how the club operates every day.
His move from the Mercedes garage to Old Trafford’s offices might seem unusual on the surface, but F1 is often viewed as the global benchmark for data use, and hence it becomes clear why United chose to hire him.
United are not suddenly winning trophies because of it, and no one expects that overnight, but they are putting real structure in place, and after a decade spent squeezing performance out of racing machines, Sansoni now has the task of helping one of the world’s biggest football clubs find the same precision.
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