“Pit Stop” – How The Best F1 Team Gets Ahead

Today I offer a short “Pit Stop” at the Red Bull Team from the F1

Last Friday I was happy to attend at a 1 hour presentation with Al Peasland from Red Bull Technology, held in the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany.  The AudiMax was crowded, I sat on the floor of the staircase with many others.  Al spoke about how the team grabbed the success within a short period of time and how they keep staying in 1st place.

The Red Bull Team entered the F1 stage in 2006/2007.  They came in best prepared.  In 2008 Sebastian Vettel joined their team.  Within a short period of time they passed some long-term teams and also some well experienced teams.  They didn´t thought about running after the others, they rushed in to become the N° 1.

How did they get upfront?   ….. well, you don´t sit and wait.  Neither did I just sit there.  To find out more I wrote him an Email and asked my questions.  Below, find the result –

Here´s what the team is performing at each race:

• eliminate faults and faulty parts immediately
• each circuit is different and asks for a modified car design to reach the best lap-time
• handling imrovements: make things easier, act faster & stay secure
• quality and reliablity improvements: on the car and for sure in the team
• stay with the rules, keep some fences but also push them a little

What does it mean for your company and team?  Let me translate it:

1. reach a 0-fault rate, look for the quality gaps in production and logistics, change them
2. offer trainings to your team to improve their quality of work
3. every day comes up with new challenges and problems, shares everyones experiences with everybody, add the result to your corporate rules
4. work with new software-programs and new technology, always
5. educate, train your staff, give a chance to develop to take over new tasks, keep it running
6. have rules, ask everyone to obey them but also to break them softly

The Red Bull Team starts with a new project each year and offers an improved F1 racing car.  That´s what they all do.  And that could be a strategy for your product(s) as well.  Do you have a product improvement plan for 2014?

The Red Bull Team starts each year with a new project which takes months.  They break down the steps to win the title with the simple goal to win each race.  That consumes weeks.  F1 car up-dates and its analysis take days.  Quick improvement steps and the broad logistics for traveling actively consumes hours and their pit stops are minimized to 2,05 seconds.  Fact.

How efficiently do you run your company?

BE A DECISION MAKER.  BECOME OUTSTANDING.

rita jaskolla – Leadership Architect –