This logic can also be applied to individuals, and in many ways you could portray this as a real sign of greatness: someone who is able to grasp the opportunity to turn a weakness into a strength. As a fan of music, and particularly the guitar, I am reminded of Django Reinhardt the great jazz guitarist who was badly injured in a fire at eighteen years old. Reinhardt re-taught himself to play the guitar and developed a unique style, only using his index and middle finger on his left hand when playing solos, as his other fingers had been paralysed as a consequence of the blaze. His distinctive style was sometimes referred to as ‘hot’ jazz, and for many he remains one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

A recent tweet from Richard Williams, concerning Ayrton Senna and his performance at the European Grand Prix at Donington in 1993, got me thinking about this question as it relates to Senna and his legacy. A few years ago I was chatting to someone at Cosworth about this amazing drive, and particularly the first lap when Senna moved from fourth, back to fifth, and then to lead the race by the end of the first lap. It is no secret that, at that time, the Cosworth in Senna’s McLaren was significantly underpowered, particularly when compared to the Renault engine in the Williams’ of Alain Prost and Damon Hill. However my friend regarded this as a potential advantage in the wet conditions, when it would be difficult, if not impossible, to use the power advantage of the Renault due to the low grip on the wet track. But he remarked that the Cosworth also had a smoother, flatter power curve which meant that it was easier to control than the more aggressive power curve of the Renault in low grip conditions, exactly like those at Donington in 1993.

One interpretation of this information is that perhaps Senna’s drive was not that exceptional because he had an engine advantage for the damp conditions that existed at the time. I prefer to look at it another way; he recognised the limitations of the Cosworth power unit during the 1993 season – which was why he moved to the Renault powered Williams for 1994 -  and he therefore made sure that, given the wet track at Donington, he would exploit this opportunity to its very maximum. That day he drove in a way that showed a confidence and commitment that none could match on the first lap. Recognising the opportunity in a weakness is what greatness is all about.

Never has the principle of remembering your past, but adapting to the future been more readily demonstrated than in Formula 1. Enzo Ferrari was first and foremost a builder of racing cars, he moved into supplying customers with versions of his racing cars to help fund the racing, but he was never a mere automotive manufacturer. Ferrari’s focus on the cars led to suggestions that he disliked drivers becoming too successful and would often manage things to suggest that ultimately it was the car that was the reason for winning, not the driver. A strong focus on the car has permeated many of the F1 teams in the UK, with Lotus, McLaren and Williams all concerned with the racing car as the focus, of course they wanted good drivers, but ultimately it was all about the car. Frank Williams’ famous mantra for anyone wanting him to sign a cheque was always ‘Will it make the car go faster?’.

The story at Red Bull Racing however demonstrates a very different history. Dietrich Mateschitz supported by his driver coach/mentor Dr Helmut Marko was never into cars. His focus has always been unequivocally on the driver. Red Bull entered F1 not as car maker, but as a sponsor with a clear focus on developing driver talent. They bought a stake in the Sauber team in 1995, and in 2001 introduced the Red Bull Junior Team under the guidance of Dr Marko. The purpose of Red Bull Juniors was to develop young talent, and ultimately to move them into F1. This included a young German, Sebastian Vettel, who Red Bull had first supported driving karts in 2000 when he was 12 years old. In 2001 Mateschitz had a disagreement with Peter Sauber; Mateschitz wanted Enrique Bernoldi in the car, whereas Sauber was keen on a young Finn called Kimi Raikkonen. As a consequence Mateschitz withdrew his funding from Sauber and looked to purchase the struggling Arrows team to provide a seat for Bernoldi. This failed to work out, but in 2004 he was looking for a drive for a young Austrian driver, Christian Klein, and in discussions with Jaguar Racing discovered that Ford might be interested in selling the team. He purchased Jaguar Racing with the initial intention of keeping the existing management team, but a disagreement over…wait for it… drivers, meant that they were relieved of their posts and Christian Horner became the new team principal at the start of 2005.

So in the end what we have is a very different history that marks Red Bull Racing ultimately as a team constructed for Red Bull drivers to show their talent, not, like Ferrari, McLaren or Williams for the building of racing cars, and like most aspects of an organisation’s history, it is both a strength and a weakness. So what happened in the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix is perhaps less surprising than you may think and maybe what arises from Vettel ignoring team orders is more a question for Christian Horner and, particularly, Adrian Newey as to the kind of organisation they want to work for, and the kind of history they want to leave behind, than it is for anything related to drivers or indeed cars.

The obvious explanation for many is that it is simply all about money, the more money you have the better car you produce and the better driver you recruit so inevitably you will win more races. Not so. If it was all about money why didn’t Toyota’s huge investment in an F1 operation allow them to win a single race, even though today some of the top-teams are still making use of their wind tunnel in Cologne? If it was all about money then Renault would not have won their world championships in 2005 and 2006 and the team that was BAR and then Honda would surely have achieved more success on the track before they became Brawn in 2009?

Of course money is a key part of the equation. I remember former Jaguar Racing boss, Tony Purnell, describing Formula 1 as a ‘celebration of unfairness’, you can see his point, the richest teams have the most resource to get sponsors and performance on the track, and when they do well they get even more revenue from the distributed media royalties via Formula One Management, the more you have the more you can get. But that’s what makes it fascinating when the underdog does pull through. When Williams produced their FW07 car back in 1980 they were running on a shoestring and only could afford one week in the wind tunnel at Imperial College to try out Patrick Head’s ground-effect design, and yet they produced a better car than the all-dominant Lotus and went on to become world champions. When Dietrich Mateschitz bought Jaguar Racing for a ‘nominal sum’ (and all the debts as well – so in reality a bit more than £1) most could not see how he would turnaround a team that had showed potential as Stewart Grand Prix, but had become a corporate political football for various groups of Ford’s management to fight over and ultimately destroy, and yet today we all see them as the obvious favourites for the championship.

Today many argue that the technology is so tightly regulated and the focus so much on continuous improvement, rather than innovation, that we will not see the kind of turnarounds that we have seen in the past. I’m more optimistic, there is a huge wealth of engineering talent in F1 and it is not just about the superstars drawing the seven figure salaries, there’s a lot of creativity out there and maybe this year we could get a few surprises that show that at the end of the day performance in F1 isn’t just about money.

The reason for this concern is that their current second customer Toro Rosso have recently announced that they will be shifting to a Renault power unit in 2014, which makes sense organizationally as they are co-owned by Dietrich Mateschitz of Red Bull with Red Bull Racing, so presumably they can share more data during development and racing and therefore improve the performance of both teams. However Toro Rosso’s location in Faenza makes Maranello the ideal partner from a logistical point of view as they are literally a few kilometres down the road. Location matters in F1, otherwise we wouldn’t have Motorsport Valley in the UK, and so the proximity between the power unit supplier and customer cannot be ignored. For this reason, Marmorini hopes that all is not lost with Toro Rosso and that they may review their decision to go to Renault, as he says on the Autosport site:  “I don’t know if Toro Rosso will be with us next year. We are still working very well with them now. They’re an important contribution to Ferrari engine development, but I also think we are giving them a competitive engine.”

A key factor in this is data. Derek Gardner, the now sadly departed designer of the six wheel Tyrrell, told me that a key problem that they had with the six wheeler was the speed of development of the front tyres, which were far smaller than the standard F1 front tyre that Goodyear supplied to all the other teams. As a consequence they were getting far less data on the performance of the tyre – as it was only fitted to two cars and so were unable to develop it as fast as the other which had feedback from twenty four cars (there were 13 teams racing back in 1976). Data therefore is everything if you want to improve performance.

So currently it seems (and things could still move around a fair bit) that if Toro Rosso move to Renault then Renault will be the leading supplier with power units in five teams: Red Bull Racing; Toro Rosso; Lotus; Williams and Caterham. Mercedes will be supplying power units to three teams: their works team plus McLaren and Force India. Ferrari will be supplying two teams – themselves and Sauber. It seems very unlikely that Cosworth, who currently supply Marussia, will be in the frame for 2014 (but never say never) and so who knows, we may see Ferrari supplying the power unit for Marussia, which will make an interesting dynamic in their race with Caterham to tenth place.

The passing of the great (and I do not use the word lightly) Professor Sid Watkins caused me some reflection, which seemed to be an appropriate way to re-launch my musings on F1. Much has already been said about Sid – his deep knowledge and expertise in the world of neurosurgery, his kindness, his sense of humour, his commitment to safety and his role as family doctor to all those within the F1 circus as they moved from continent to continent. But as I look back over his time in F1 it is clear that he drove the most incredible paradigm shift in a global sport that went beyond Formula 1. Peter Hamlyn, his colleague at UCL, who described him as a cross between the mischievous Mr Toad, Winston Churchill, Henry V, Romeo and an encyclopedia, noted that..’when the IOC came to inspect our London 2012 Olympic bid they asked us if “the medical facilities would reach Formula One standards”.’ To imagine such a question in the 1960s or 1970s was pretty much impossible, and it is a testament to Sid that F1 is now the benchmark for safety technology. Of course, like other leaders who create seismic levels of change he did not do it alone. The pioneering work of Sir Jackie Stewart, the total support of Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley, the commitment of volunteer medical staff across the world, the expertise in FIA institute, were all part of the story, but Sid became the talisman of all that was new about safety in Formula 1. It was his clear focus on creating a different way of thinking about safety and the medical infrastructure to deliver it that was so impressive. The whole notion of the medical car and the two air ambulances required at every F1 race were about ensuring that should an incident occur the very best care was available almost immediately, it was in these critical minutes that most could be done to save lives, and there’s no question that he saved many.

An impressive character on every level, Sid also produced, in my view, one of the best books ever on Formula 1. Ritualistic driver autobiographies are generally a rather lack luster collection aimed at fully exploiting fame before it fades away (although Niki Lauda’s are the exception). Sid’s book is a combination of many things, funny, moving, insightful, full of rich (in both meanings) characters it also gives a detailed account of how to change the paradigm of a global sport – essential reading, I would have thought, for anyone interested in really making a difference.

Peter Hamlyn’s piece in the Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/motorsport/formulaone/9541394/Sid-Watkins-tamed-Formula-One-and-was-as-famous-for-his-neurosurgery-as-Christian-Barnard-was-for-the-heart.html

Sid Watkins’ biography:

Watkins, S. (1997). Life at the Limit: Triumph and Tragedy in Formula 1. Pan Books.

There are two questions which seem to be hanging in the air. First as to whether it is right to place the teams and all those working in F1 into such a potentially volatile situation, and of course there are different views as to how much danger they were really in, the Force India incident was undoubtedly traumatic for those involved, and everyone was glad that F1 personnel were largely unaffected by the troubles in Bahrain. The second question seems to have been whether or not F1 can help or hinder in such a situation. It certainly seems that the unimpeded access which the F1 journalists appeared to enjoy allowed the opposition access to publicity which had previously been denied to them. The fact that, just as the F1 teams were leaving Bahrain, a Channel 4 News Crew was detained by the authorities suggests that the door may have been opened a chink for F1, but it is now being closed up again. However there will be a continued debate about whether or not there should be a Bahrain GP in 2013 (which has probably already started), and from that point of view further scrutiny will be brought to bear on the situation and the progress of the opposition in obtaining reforms. Time will tell. But one thing is clear, anyone who thinks a global sport, such as F1, is in some kind of vacuum and can ignore the political context in which it operates, is well and truly out of touch with reality.

Sadly of late the name of Lotus is no longer associated with such greatness but with petty legal arguments and as a name which is for sale to the highest bidder. This is a sad state of affairs and appears to have got even more confused with the sale of Group Lotus’s owner Proton, the Malaysian car manufacturer, to another Malaysian automotive operation: DRB-Hicom. This has led to the end of ‘Lotus’ sponsorship for the former Renault team (and before that Toleman and Benetton) who are now called Lotus F1. So perhaps this means the Lotus name will finally be allowed to bow out of this sad attempt to resuscitate the Chapman legend? It seems not, owner of Lotus F1, Genii Capital’s Gerard Lopez is recently quoted “We are happy to carry the Lotus name as we believe it is a good name for F1″. Actually I think the opposite, please treat the name and legacy with some respect and let it be, we’ve seen how great automotive brands can be destroyed by those who are simply trying to make a fast buck. If someone is going to regenerate the Lotus name we need someone like Ferrari’s Luca di Montezemolo, someone who understands the care and attention needed to make an established brand live on, not those who seek to make a quick return from its sale and exploitation. It’s time for everyone to move on and leave the Lotus F1 legacy in peace.

It confirmed many of the insights I got from reading the book and which I have used in my strategy sessions with our MBA students, Steve Jobs is very much an inspirational figure, as much for his dark side as the light. As I was going through the HBR piece it suddenly struck me that many of his qualities and quirks I had come across before in an individual who has been as innovative and revolutionary in his spheres of work as Jobs had in his, Colin Chapman.

If I look across Isaacson’s lessons many (but not all) relate very strongly to my picture of Colin Chapman. The importance of focus, the ability to cut through a complex technical issue to the core – think of Chapman’s ideas for fuel sacks rather than tanks which came out of them trying to thread the tanks through a complex spaceframe, the search for elegance and simplicity – Jobs hatred of using screws in his products, Chapman’s concept of the monocoque chassis in the Lotus 25 and the engine becoming part of the structure of the car in the Lotus 49, the lack of tolerance for any who were not ‘A’ team players, it can be said that neither Jobs or Chapman were model managers particularly on the people skills front and yet both had the cream of the crop wanting to work with them, why? Perhaps because they were the best, or perhaps because people saw the interpersonal deficiencies as symptomatic of someone in an hurry, someone who was going to get things done, make things happen and this was a ride they were not going to miss. There was also Jobs’ famous Reality Distortion Field where the impossible became possible, this was very much reminiscent of Chapman where the car could be redesigned and rebuilt just before the race, to incorporate a new innovation thought up by Chapman that day! And perhaps the best of all: ‘When behind Leapfrog’ – anyone remember the Lotus 78? In the mid seventies Lotus had fallen behind and so Chapman got Tony Rudd, Peter Wright and other brilliant technical minds to go back to basics and redefine the grand prix car, no copying competitors, just developing the best solution, in this case ground-effect aerodynamics.

Of course there were also differences. As far as I’m aware Chapman was not a fan of Zen Buddhism, Chapman was also an adept collaborator and, unlike Enzo Ferrari, did not feel the need to build his own engines, Jobs, in contrast, wanted to control the whole thing from end to end, he would have instinctively gone down the Ferrari route. So there were differences, but on balance the similarities win out, for me the most poignant are that both started their businesses in their garages from nothing (although in Chapman’s case this was a stable behind his dad’s pub), and sadly both left us well before their time.

One of the perpetual tensions between Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Management (FOM) and the F1 teams, is that the teams feel that they are not receiving their rightful proportion of the media/ circuit revenues – as they are a key part of the show – and Mr E points out that they are taking none of the risk in running races and securing media deals and therefore do not deserve a more significant share of the benefits. The indications from the Autosport piece is that this could be the start of a process where some of the teams actually end up taking a stake in the commercial side of F1. They speculate that Ferrari shares could be transferred to provide them with a stake in the sport – you may have seen that the Lehman Brothers $1.5billion stake in F1 is up for sale, so ‘go figure’ as our American cousins like to say.

While the Autosport piece makes no direct reference to Red Bull Racing, or their owner Dietrich Mateschitz, acquiring a stake, they do mention RBR in the same piece with a quote from Christian Horner, so there is a certain amount of implication by association going on. An investment by Red Bull would make a lot of sense as Mateschitz currently owns two teams (RBR and Toro Rosso) and so, you could argue, is more exposed than individual teams and could therefore, like Ferrari, see the sense in acquiring equity in FOM. This provides a rather persuasive explanation for why they left FOTA, as presumably this placed some restriction on their flexibility in dealing with FOM, which could involve a range of issues, including share swops or buying shares for cash. Of course all of this is pure speculation at present, but I suspect the story will unfold simultaneously with the negotiations for the Concorde Agreement. I hope that the politics etc. don’t become more interesting than the racing, because I hope the racing will be fantastic this year, but I suspect that we will have a fascinating sideshow evolving that will certainly bring about some different arrangements than we have seen in the past. Don’t expect more of the same.

I remember once talking to Patrick Head, back in 2000, about the role of Adrian Newey in the development of championship winning cars, Newey was then at McLaren, having left Williams during 1996. Patrick in his usual forthright way didn’t believe that Adrian was the common factor in the success of Williams in the mid-nineties, followed by McLaren in 1998, ‘he’s very  good at moving at the right time’ I remember him commenting, but I suspect asked that question again today  he might have a different view. One of the reasons cited for Adrian’s departure from Williams was that Frank and Patrick were unwilling to give him an equity stake in the company, suggesting that Adrian perhaps had bigger ambitions than just being a technical director.

I reflected on this when hearing of the various rumours that Ferrari were now after Adrian Newey in a bid to restore some technological dominance of the sort they enjoyed from 1999 through to 2004. At the recent launch of the Red Bull RB8 Adrian was asked about this and responded as follows: “I can’t see myself going anywhere else. I’ve been involved in the team from very early on, I feel very centrally involved in it and proud we’ve managed to get from the ashes of Jaguar to where we are today. That in itself brings a huge amount of satisfaction and the slightly paternal feeling of wanting that to carry on. To now leave for another team would kind of feel a little like walking out on your children in a way.”. Of course a few of those with memories back to 2001 remember him ‘leaving’ McLaren to go to Bobby Rahal’s Jaguar Team, but then subsequently changing his mind and staying with McLaren, Rahal then going back to the USA and handing over to another Team Principal in the merry-go-round that was then Jaguar Racing. So perhaps things are different this time? It also made me wonder as to whether he still harboured ambitions to be a bit more than just an employee of an F1 team, and certainly if you were to keep someone as talented as this, this could be one of the options to explore. There will come a time when Dietrich Mateschitz decides that he will do something else with the millions of dollars he makes from energy drinks, or perhaps if they win their third successive championship in 2012, he may decide that he no longer needs to own the team. This could perhaps be an interesting opportunity for Adrian Newey and perhaps Christian Horner to be more than just employees and run their own F1 team. Who knows? Stranger things have happened in the world of Formula 1.