Why I love F1. And what it teaches innovators and leaders

Lucy Cooper, Head of Innovation - Europe at Accenture

 My childhood Sundays were typical of any suburban family in the United Kingdom in the 1980s and 1990s. We’d wake up, wash the car, roast the chicken, eat the chicken and plop in front of the television to watch Ski Sunday and Formula One races. That’s how my passion for F1 was born.

 Yes, I’m a BIG fan

 I was so enamored of F1 as a kid that I wanted to be a driver when I grow up. I would sit an inch from the TV enamored, I would beg my dad to take me carting, I couldn’t wait for Sunday to roll around.

 When people learn how much I love it – that I go racing whenever I can on track and that I geek out on F1 and can talk about it for hours—they’re often surprised. But I’m not alone. F1 is one of the world’s most-watched sports. It attracts hundreds of millions of viewers and generates billions in revenue each year.

 What’s the draw?

 F1 is theatre on wheels. It has the spectacle, surprise and speed – every week during the season, teams transport the car—an engineering masterpiece that literally has wings—and the entire garage that services it to far-flung race sites. Fans will tell you that the drama is about much more than the two-hour race.

 I had an epiphany about my love of F1 several years ago. I was looking for some insights into high-performance innovation and realised that the answers had been with me all along. F1 is the epitome of just that—the proper balance of rules and risk. The sport gives me weekly inspiration that informs my leadership style and my ethos around innovation practice.

 Walking away from a fireball

 Here’s an example of what I mean. At the Bahrain Grand Prix at the end of 2020, Romain Grosjean crashed into the barriers at 140 miles per hour. His car split in half and exploded. Miraculously, he pulled himself out of the cockpit and walked away with minor burns.

 Romain owes his life, in part to innovation (along with his courage and the amazingly brave safety car drivers Bernd Maylander and Dr Ian Roberts). He said it himself in an interview from his hospital bed, crediting the titanium halo protection bar for saving his life. This protective equipment was introduced, somewhat controversially, in 2018 after a fatal accident.

 F1’s governing body the FIA started investing the crash within hours. Today’s F1 cars aren’t supposed to explode. But investigators learned that Romain’s fuel cap had popped out as he crashed on the first lap and the weight of a full fuel tank was too high. He also burnt through some of his protective clothing - his boots and gloves. So improvements will be forthcoming. Because this sport is all about innovation. It is constant. And of course, it happens fast.

 Start your engines...driving innovation

 This sport’s unbelievable commitment to continuous improvement is a textbook lesson in “how to innovate” and “how to lead.” So in this spirit, here are some innovator’s takeaways from Sundays on the grid that stay with me the most.

 Down time. What’s that?

 F1 is always moving when it comes to innovation. There’s never any complacency. Design changes happen nearly every season. Suffice it to say that we’ve come a long way since Maserati and Ferrari were winning races with cars that had to be pushed along to be started, there were few manufacturers in play, and where the drivers had no protection.

Today’s F1 cars are equipped with advanced sensors, and teams iterate tirelessly between races every week, playing around with down force, aero settings, tyre pressure—whatever it takes to perform better. Whilst driving in a race, a team can identify a problem, write the software to fix it, and send the patch to download on the car, instructing the driver to switch mode mid 250km/hr lap. They are looking to move the needle by hundredths of a second. Part of the Mercedes Manta in the F1 team is “Own your tenth of a second”. I mean think about that – they are driving towards the whole team chasing those illusive hundredths of a second to compete. Corporate innovators typically aren’t chasing a micro moment like this one, but they can appreciate that bold innovation must be continual and precise.

 An artful balance of joy and rules

 In the world of F1, there is a lot of joy. It comes from the competition, the hard work, and the sheer humanity of it all. But F1 is also about strict rules. After all, the cars are engineered to a set of rules or “formula.”

 FIA, the sport’s governing body, does an excellent job at balancing the sometimes competing influences of entertainment and regulation—ensuring that the sport remains enjoyable yet competitive, thrilling yet safe. Innovators across industries understand how difficult, but how essential it is to moving their change agendas forward. One big part of the 2022 new car design is to reduce the dirty air on track, which means that cars can race closer together and be more competitive. They are also leveling the playing field by giving those at the back of the pack the most allotted hours in the wind tunnel. The cost cap has come in this year, to bring the teams development budgets closer together.

 This is the ultimate collective

There’s no team like an F1 team. The first thing that an F1 driver does when he wins a race is thank all of the people who helped get him across the line first. He knows he’s responsible for the last mile of something that’s the sum of thousands of people’s expertise, time and passion.

And they learn from their mistakes - fast. They can fix broken cars from qualifying overnight. They drive in free practice with aero paint on certain parts and tune and tune as a team, working as a high performance unit. They look at the data. They de-brief together after every race - drivers and engineers, diagnosing what went well, and what didn't and how to make it better together. They are always sharing information as a team.

And - they have the right attitude. When the dominant Mercedes team put the wrong tyres on car due to a radio failure—which cost them, and Russell the race (twice) —the reaction was illuminating. Team boss Toto Wolf acknowledged the failure, talked about the learning moment and praised the younger driver. He said, “It didn’t work out today, but a new star is born”. Similarly when they had a bad weekend in Monza, that saw Gasly get his maiden victory – Toto’s response? “It was a bad day for Mercedes but a great day for F1” It’s the purest way I’ve ever heard anyone talk about failure without sounding sycophantic.

 The race never ends

 I know that F1 as an organisation has some of its own important races to win. There’s a glaring need for more racial and gender diversity as well as sustainability improvements. But I’m hopeful that F1 can evolve. Because it always does. So I can’t wait to celebrate the day when another little girl who grew up watching F1 in her living room ends up in the cockpit at Monaco. As for me, I’ll stick with my MINI—at least for now.

 Are you are F1 fanatic like me? How does it inspire you as an innovator? Let me know in the comments.