Chewing the fat on Formula 1

Last night I was on a panel at Cass Business School (ranked #3 in Europe for Finance Research), which was something of a privilege, coming from a rival business school – Cranfield (ranked #1 in UK for Executive Education). I was in very good company with top F1 bloggers Joe Saward and James Allen, former CEO of Mercedes GP, Nick Fry, Leadership expert Dr Amanda Goodall and F1 technical guru Gary Anderson – why on earth have the BBC dropped him from their F1 coverage? Gary’s ‘cut off’ lap time predictions were always the highlight of qualifying as far as I’m concerned.

The panel was expertly chaired by Dr Paolo Aversa from Cass and we had a great time putting the world of F1 to rights, helped along by a great audience with lots of knowledgeable questions. Of course there was much to talk about – the new power units (I guess the term engine will now be consigned to history); what lies in store for Bernie (the view here was never underestimate him, and he will be back fully in charge by the end of the year); what’s going to happen at McLaren regarding the appointment of a new CEO (one or two people were a bit coy about this one, so maybe we’ll have an announcement soon); and will Lotus get the financial backing it needs to stop haemorrhaging great people. All in all there was much to discuss and that’s the great thing about F1: technology, finance, strategy, creative interpretations of regulations and above all people, and as Nick Fry reminded us, at the end of the day, it’s people that make the difference.