Red bull F-1 : An exemplar for High performance Agile Teams

Red bull F-1 : An exemplar for High performance Agile Teams

Red Bull, known for its iconic energy drink, has made a remarkable transition from being a powerhouse in the beverage industry to a dominant force in the fast-paced world of Formula 1 racing.

How did a beverage company managed to become the No 1 Formula Team ?

Brand Value and High Performance Culture

The High Performance culture is one of the most important traits for modern Agile teams irrespective of industry . What can we learn from the fastest team in the world which managed to clinch the most no of Formula title in this year.


There are two primary factors which helped Red bulls formidable success

A) Founder Values & Brand Strategy

B) Principal Team Manager - Christian Horner & Team


A) Founder led Culture & Brand Essence

Red Bull's foray into motorsports began in the late 1990s when Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz and former racing driver Gerhard Berger saw an opportunity to combine their passion for adrenaline-fueled sports with the brand's energetic image. This led to the establishment of Red Bull Racing in 2004, signaling the brand's official entry into the highly competitive realm of Formula 1.

Red Bull Racing's journey in Formula 1 started with the acquisition of Jaguar Racing, a team that had struggled to find success on the track. Red Bull infused fresh energy, substantial investment, and a new vision into the team, rebranding it as Red Bull Racing ahead of the 2005 season.

Win on Sunday - Sell on Monday.

There is a direct correlation between red bull winning and the sales uptrend of red bull beverages in the market.

The Leadership team had decided that investing in Formula 1 will be a gamechanger as its one of the largest marketing platform in the world after olympics and football.

Outsource first and Invest soon in R&D

70 % of the investment goes to R&D and the rest is split to the winning team.

Redbull partnered with Renault, Honda and now ford as they clearly understood that they don't have the core competency in the engines.

Eventually, they are stepping away from dependencies and now building their own engine to beat the top engine makers in the market.


B) Principal Team Manager & team

Christian Horner brings out a unique approach to bringing high performance team.s

In one of the podcasts, he had shared some quick lessons in which we can take some analogy for agile organisation irrespective of industry.

  1. Focus on weakness instead of strength

Conventional wisdom says focus on your strength and overshadow the weakness. He believes even after winning , we need to a learn a lot to keep winning. By focusing on weakness, it will help in adding more to the strengths.

  1. Passion for Speed

Ultimately Formula -1 is all about speed which forms the crux of the sport. He had a deep desire for speed and wanted to compete in one .

The job which gives you adrenaline rush helps you to make indistinguishable across any day of the week.

Fast agile teams need to understand the core driver of the organisation culture for bringing the best of them.

  1. Focus on reality than fiction

After losing the podium finish, the team usually has 24 hrs to rebound on the mistakes made.

The faster the mistakes are identified and owning up the responsibilities in not repeating the same makes a huge difference in the next race which starts within days.

The same applies to agile organisation in learning what didn't work out and change the course immediately to steer the route to success.

  1. Ability to disconnect between risk & reward

Having the ability to judge a situation or run experiments on when to progress or quit is a trait for high performance teams .

  1. Being Approachable at any levels

Working with all levels of people without discriminating on the significance. Being approachable helps in bringing the team together irrespective of differences.

The high performance team won't have a member saying. “ No body wanna talk to her , she is unapproachable “ .

  1. All business are people business.

Though formula -1 is engineering heavy business , Christian Horner believes that it's a people business. Leadership for a High performance team require the below traits.

Bring People together

Empower them

Show the right direction

Unblock the obstacles in performing the job

Clarity on ones job without being bothered by other departments.

  1. 90 % of Team members want clarity & Open communication

Majority of the people don't want be under dark and require clarity on context and situation.

  1. Collective sense of responsibility vs Ego

The F-Team is judged every two weeks on Sunday based on their performance

Though individual roles and responsibility carried it out error free, it would be futile if they don't make the car in winning the podium.

High performance teams work keeping ego and work for each other in harmony in achieving the single North Star metric.

  1. Empathy cannot be built through Zoom meetingsIn person meetings helps people in building bonds by constantly challenging each other whereas its a myth that the personal connection can be nurtured over zoom calls.
  2. Build an apolitical culture

Empowering the team members on how can they do better than what to do leads a micromanagement culture.

Rather than pinpointing fingers at each other on mistakes, owning and helping each other out is an ideal culture for high performance teams.


Are there any traits which we can pick from Formula 1 for Agile teams ?


Fouad Djebbar

Data Engineering | LLMs/GenAI | Product Analytics

12 个月

Maybe it is beginner luck!! Redbull team behaved like a startup so they didn’t have an old way of doing things not like the majority of their competitors. Indeed, RedBull didn’t have to deal with change management. Hence, They came with a clean and curious mindset. On the other hand, Hamilton is a very good driver no questions but after winning several times.. mmm it made him a bit more confident. If given the RedBull car he might have done better. By the way I’m a Verstappen fan.

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