Inside F1: Winning Championships, Rebuilding Williams, & The World of Guenther Steiner | The Review

0:00So, I have no doubt you probably have a lot better things to be doing over the holidays than tuning into your favourite show, but for those of you that couldn't stay away, we have a couple of special special. for you. The first of these is looking at the world of Formula One and most importantly what it takes to be a winner in one of the most technical and competitive environments in sport. What I love about the legends you're about to hear from is that some have tasted the ultimate success and others are still building towards it. It's a balance of action and theory, plenty of ways to approach it all gunning for the same prize.

0:35Time to hear from the experts. This is Formula One on the business of sport. I think we've spent a huge amount of time just off microphone talking about how important people are into the business of teams. And something you've done since you've taken over at Williams is really try and build a culture that not just reflects what you want the team to be, but also that people want to be a part of. So I don't think there's any better place to start than ask why that's so important to you as you look to rebuild Williams into one of the Formula One's biggest teams. It's, in my experience, culture drives everything.

1:08So I'll give you examples of what I mean by that. There's a passion that drives through Williams that was not my creation. It was created when I joined, and it's fantastic to see. But it's a passion that meant that often people will be doing what they believe to be right. But ultimately, actually, it's very short-termist. It's fighting a fire that's in front of you today and didn't allow us to do any more than survive when I joined. And the way you take yourself from survival to a business operation using proper process structure, systems, etc. is you need something that drives that in such a strong way.

1:39Even if you don't have my voice, it's now driven by others and accelerated by others as well at the same time. And everyone's experience is different, but mine is that culture is that heartbeat that drives it in a far more powerful way than anything else. If you put a process in place, humans actually quite like working around processes and against it. But if that process is created because our culture is we want to be the best in the world at doing x, y, and z, and actually this is just a method to be able to get there, that actually pushes people more towards it than further away from it. And the second bit is this continuous drive.

2:10That's what Formula One is. It's this continuous drive for every millisecond to be found and perfected. And that's cultural. That has to be, it's not something you're born with. That has to be driven by an organization. And if you look around you and you're surrounded by a thousand peers, all pushing in the same direction, looking for the same, hopefully not the same millisecond, otherwise we're going to go around in circles quite literally but um very each one's just pushing the boundaries what they're doing that effectively creates a momentum that i can just sit there and watch with pride as it happens i find it really interesting because when you first think about formula one and you look at what makes the everything so successful as you said it's the marginal gains it's how quick the car is that's what everyone talks about at the start of each year so when you highlight people as the most important thing that drives these teams it actually shows the uniqueness i guess of this sport, combining those two things in such a seamless way.

3:02Yeah, exactly. I mean, no more so than this year describing really those marginal games. We had games, we had eight tenths separating 20 cars in Monza. We had 90 milliseconds separating five cars. I mean, it's a period of time that I love it. You really have to be on your game to doing it. But now that the statement of every millisecond matters has really got significance and impact. And going back to people, so it's not machines or technology or systems. Those are created by people who have an understanding of what we need to hit as an end goal and working together. And the second bit of it is to win championships.

3:35And I've been fortunate to win a good number of them now. The key is all 1 ,000 people pointing the right way and working together. No one's fighting each other in the team. And to be clear on that, that means whether you're in HR, finance, communication, podcasts, engineering, design office, you two have a place. All of that has to be working together. Otherwise, you're simply fighting each other more than anything else. And that's what culture drives. How was it when you take the move from a team that you've just highlighted where you've been consistently winning and then you go to a team which hasn't been winning and you want to be bringing a huge amount of that, but you also don't want to be the person that walks in and goes, at Mercedes, we used to do it like this.

4:14How do you find the balance between bringing the best of an organization, but also finding your own way? I think I hopefully haven't many times said at Mercedes, simply because it's the first way to piss people off more than anything else. And I don't think everything was done perfectly in Mercedes either, for that matter. But there's some great things that I've learned and I've tried to take everything I can from it. And there's some great things that existed in Williams beforehand. I described one of them. This passion is enormous. So you don't want to stunt that. You don't want to stop it from happening.

4:43You just want to surround it in process system structure, data, and a long-term plan that allows us to think more than next week, which is where we started. And here's how you do it more than anything else. You present a vision that people will sign up to. So there's no point presenting a vision of we're going to win 10 championships and it'll start next year because zero people around me will sign up to it. It has to be a realistic timeframe when we can fix things, a realistic assessment of what we need to get into the right place in order to achieve that. and what I call lieutenants. But effectively, each individual, I have five people below me who I trust and believe in everything that they're saying.

5:20They mirror my views and thoughts and they're completely aligned with our strategy, our goals and our culture. They employ five people that mirror exactly that at the same time. And all of a sudden, culture doesn't come from my word because it doesn't. It doesn't. All I can do is mimic the behaviors I want. Culture comes from bottom up from the team, seeing by example and being led by example how we want to be as an organization. So to your point, what we've really done is structure, where do we want to be? What's the North Star? What's the milestones along the way? And how are we going to get there with realistic expectation for everyone?

5:50There will always be disbelief. So one of the first disbeliefs was, well, we're not going to get the investment. And the investment turns up and it turns up and it turns up. And Dalton have been fantastic in absolutely doing everything that we have demonstrated that we need to do and have done along that journey. And that brings everyone along with you at the same time. And I understand why that was everyone's fears. For 20 years, Williams didn't have the investment it needed. So there's going to be an amount of concern that that's the first barrier you get through. When you get through that, the next one is, well, we can't achieve this because of X, Y, and Z, or this isn't in the right place.

6:22And it's really just forming a structure and system around it all that they are in control of that. That is their accountability and responsibility. I'm there by their side. You tell me what I can do to help you and we'll get you there. But it won't be a lack of finance. We're in the right place on that one now so it's going to be more around the time it takes us to get ourselves into a good place can i ask when was the culture the worst and what did you do to correct it on day one of walking in i was caught out by how far away we were from benchmark in williams and it's an interesting word worse it was different it wasn't a bad culture it was people doing what they thought was right there wasn't individuals wanting to fight the business but it was short-termist it was just survival.

7:04A good example of this is I need to take this wishbone and this wishbone needs to get to the track. It was going to skip four processes by doing it, but I'm going to get it to the track. And that was the individual wanting to do everything right in their mind for the business. But the reality behind it is that wasn't the urgent items to get sorted for the track. X, Y, and Z are far more important. So if that helps you, it wasn't what I would call a bad culture. People weren't trying to destroy the business, but it was misaligned with actually how you construct the business that's properly focusing on medium and long-term goals to give us out the survival into the skylight.

7:38Let's talk about those medium and long-term goals because you've spoken publicly about how you're positioning success in the team, 26, 27, 28, maybe being the years that you really want to see that development. Yes, it lays out a brilliant plan and it also sets an expectation amongst the team, but we all know that sports are a results-driven business and a huge part of that, particularly when you're motivating a team is you want results to keep the team motivated. Zero points every weekend doesn't necessarily do that. You've made huge strides this year alone, which is fantastic. But the real question around it is, to me, how much of that business side of Williams, how much of the development of you as a team do you actually attach to winning?

8:17The secret source of Formula One isn't really a secret source. It's as simple as this. Performance drives everything. Commercial revenues, we only have two income sources. One's commercial revenue, one is from Formula One itself. And that both are based on, are you beating nine other teams? Simple as that. So everything has to be driven towards performance first, fundamentally. The next element of things is that we, as an organization, the only way to get there, and I've said this before, I'm not interested in finishing eighth, seventh, sixth, fifth. It means literally nothing to me because it doesn't mean anything to me.

8:51But in my experience, and the good news is this is translating. As long as we focus on these long-term goals and they're really succinct long-term goals, wrap data around everything, have this process, have this structure, we're going to invest here, we're going to invest in these at the same time, we're going to let everything else go. The car will still be quicker as a result of what we're doing because that long-term investment will just pick up some low-hanging fruit on the way here. And the proof of the pudding is this car, the 25 car that we've got now, we've scored more points now to this point of the season.

9:20we did cumulatively between 2018, I think it was, to 2024. So we've just done more than six seasons put together in one season. Why? The answer is because we weren't focused on this year. We were focused on, when I first started in 23, long-term simulation projects and development projects, which are kicking in now, which are producing the performance that we have. This car actually wasn't in the wind tunnel for very long at all. Our focus has been on 2026, 27, and 28, for exactly those long-term reasons. So to your point and going back to what's our North Star, our North Star is I want to win with this team.

9:54That's why I've joined multiple world championships. We're not going to get there by slowly eking towards it. And I use the words break everything for good reason, just to reset everyone's mindset on this isn't slightly scratching or slightly polishing what you've got. Throw it away and start again. But I'll give you the timeline to do it. So then when you're working with Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon now, what are the biggest things that you're looking to bring to them to help them reach the potential in the Williams car? So if we start with Alex, when I met, I've known Alex since 2016. He was with me at Mercedes, then went on to Red Bull, but I've known him since he was much younger.

10:28Him and Lando and George all grew up together, which is quite a nice little story. You can see them have had a call huddling together as well. And what I knew of him at the time, fiercely quick, lacked some confidence in himself, didn't understand how good he really was, I think at times. And when I met him in 2023, he was uh he lacked belief in where he was i think he'd had a hard time pretty much going through the red bull system he had and and one year and williams hadn't necessarily helped him and my job in all of that is to create a shield around him let him know he is bloody good he is one of the top drivers in the sport i'll be by him side and give him a pedestal that allows him to grow as a result of it and you know he has the inherent skill but what i've done as a result of things i hope is really grow him as an individual where he has the confidence to to give his all every single weekend, which is what you're seeing this year.

11:15And to be clear on this, they do the hard work. Mine is just really light, guiding buffers on the outside to make sure that they're good. Same when they have a down weekend. They will have a down weekend. My job is to make sure they don't spiral out of control. They're here. They understand how to, again, put it in a pox. It's done. It's gone. Here's how we move forward together at the same time. And with Carlos, it's exactly the same, except he's very good at doing it. He's pissed at himself or the team on monday afterwards and so he should be by tuesday he's calling and trying to understand how do we find this performance this this and this we need to talk this out this is what i'm going to do to change myself and mine is to be a sanding board and here to effectively execute the items that simply make sense for all of us as a result of it um so it's an easy job with these two it was it was kind of hollywoodified if you want to call it that if that's even a word you know in the last he's trying to survive but you know why aside from him being a name and aside from him being the last Ferrari driver to win the Grand Prix and the success that he had the year you managed to get him.

12:12On everything that you've talked about around what you want to achieve, why was he such an important part of that? So I've spoken about culture. Culture is driven from values and behaviours and the values that both Carlos and Alex have are exemplary. They're individuals where their ego doesn't take over. Williams is far bigger than me. I am just here to hold on to the shirt and put it into a better place then hand it to someone else. With Alex and Carlos, Williams is bigger than the two of them as well. Our job between all of us is to bring Williams back into winning ways. And that absolutely is their belief system and where they're born.

12:44They will perform at their very highest level. They will give us everything that they can. And if that's a win, they'll give it to us. But it's about understanding that everything is bigger than us in the world. We're just a part of that journey. And so that was part of the reason with the two of them as well at the same time. The second is, if there's any fighting between your two drivers, you're going to slow yourself down as a team. We have to rebuild everything and I need their help to do so. and the third is they're both leaders they're young but they're both leaders they think they're older now but they're not they're still they're still young compared to me certainly um and what i need is individuals that can stand up in front of the team where 40 words can drive the team forward for a year and they can both do that formula one the thing i find the most interesting about it is that you're a team sport at everything but actually it's driven by individual results those two drivers you mentioned if they're not working together it's harder for the team do you feel now we're in an environment where drivers are more consistently behaving like they are a team whether in the past we did see a little bit more friction in cars i i would definitely say there's elements of the past where you had that friction but it wasn't that long ago where there was friction between frankly nico and lewis for that matter um i think we have to acknowledge one thing i have it easy at the moment we're not fighting for a world championship we're fighting for what was survival previously now what we're fighting for is strong results and maybe into a podium at some stage.

14:05It does get different when you're fighting for wins, but if you create the right construct beforehand, you can do that in a fair and exemplary format, which is a lot of what I learned at Mercedes as well for transparency. So I think that's one difference. So there's a little bit more friction, for example, in McLaren, not as much as in the olden days, I agree. I think the second part now is in the olden days, you could win, you'd have a car second and a half faster than anyone. That doesn't exist anymore now. We are fighting in tenths of milliseconds. seconds. So if you give anything away, and you do by fighting each other, and the extremes that I remember is data was hidden from one side of the garage, for example, or you'd hide things in what you were doing.

14:39If you're working that way, you're going to be overtaken. I remember Nico said in the 80 gram change in paint on his helmet, it was something that he did to get that extra edge. But it's continuously, and it wasn't just there, you find it in every single area of it. So with Nico, ways of working with the engineer, how late you can push your engineers working what you can scrub out of this how you can get things slightly more biased towards the team being better it's it is into the micro details but you need everyone doing it massive news this week with Christian Horner leaving what happens when there are leadership changes at the top of these teams how impactful is that on the actual performance in the short term there is not a big impact either way new people coming or old people going you know because it's a they are racing cars it's not a football team that you bring a new player in that in the next game you have got the new star there or the new talent there.

15:28If you have got a team, an F1 team, if a team is good, it takes years to get bad. But also, if you're bad, it takes years to build up to be good again, you know. So you cannot judge. I mean, now Christian going, I think in the next races, in the next year of races, there will be no change at it. I mean, obviously, because the scene is set already, for example, for next year, the cars are under development. You know, Red Bull is doing their own PU next year. their own engine, everything. That's all set up. If now somebody comes in and changes, he wouldn't have the time or she wouldn't have the time to do anything because everything is such a long lead time, you know.

16:06So you will not see, now Christian leaves, you will not see a spike neither down or up. It will be more what is next, how they are doing it, how they are restructuring, what were their actual problems with Christian because I don't know. I mean, the team still won races this year, you know. So it isn't this bad. Obviously, they are not where they want to be as a manufacturer. But I put that one down that they cannot get a second driver, which can keep up with Max. Because if you take Max out, I think Red Bull would actually be last in the championship. Do you think it was the right decision? To let him go?

16:38I don't know why he was let go. I mean, you know, so it's difficult to say right or wrong if you don't know what the reason was. Would you have kept him if you were leading the team? I would say, I mean, Christian, he won a lot of championships in the end. But if there was something which wasn't working internally, there was too much friction, at some stage you have to make change, you know, because if there is friction, that takes energy. And people don't focus on the right thing to make the team and the car better, but focus on how to position themselves in the team. It's nothing else than a big corporate, you know.

17:09Big corporates normally struggle when there is power struggle, you know. If it is all clear and plain sailing, companies are successful. But I don't know what happened internally. and for me it was a little bit surprising what happened. Timing always in sport is crucial. It just seems extraordinary. With the development changes and everything coming next year, to make this change now seemed really strange. But actually what you're saying is the lead times are actually much longer than that. So a change at the top right now wouldn't necessarily impact what's going to happen because that work's been done.

17:38Yeah, that work has been set up. For me also timing was not the big timing, the small timing, two races before the summer break. It's very weird. Normally you make these changes in the summer break or in the off season in winter. You know, it's like, I didn't expect it. You know, it's like, wow, that's a very weird moment, you know. One thing that's always really intrigued me as a fan is the difference between those teams competing at the top and managing and financing those teams that are less competitive and how you as, you know, a leader of that views success. What does that actually look like?

18:14Scoring points, getting cars to the finish line. You're selling something. You're trying to build this winning culture. But what is winning to you? What was winning to you at Haas? For me, winning is making progress, getting better, getting better commercially, getting better sporting-wise, getting better at an infrastructure, growing something. You know, like for me, starting something off is not only to be part of it. It's always what I like to see growth, getting better, getting more, giving more to the people which are there, you know, because in the end, you've got the social responsibility for the people which work there, making their life better and things like this.

18:49That is what I like. And it's a combination of things. It's not only one. It's not only just participating. You can achieve that. And then maybe you get lazy and you think you enjoy that one. I don't enjoy that one. I always have got a target where I want to get and I try to achieve it. I'm never in a big hurry, but it's always to build something up to make it better, make it bigger. So if we're using, let's use drivers as an example. If you're trying to hire drivers, is that the story that you tell them? This is a place where we'll improve, we'll grow, we'll develop. We don't know where the end is, but it's going to be better, hopefully, than where you're starting.

19:20Absolutely. I mean, but it's not only for drivers. That's what you have to give also the people, because any company or any sports team is just as good as the people you have got that are working, as good they are. And to get the good people, you need to give them a vision, what you want to do. And you need to try to find the people which have got the same vision. because if you just want to have people which are good, but they are happy just to have a job, you need some of them as well. But if you've got old people like that, you will do a decent job, but you will never get really where I want to go.

19:55Because not everybody's the same. Some people are pretty happy to have a job, a high-profile job, but not aspiring for more. But for me, it's always get better in everything, not only one thing. But it's not only in sports. It is in any business. It's about the people. I mean, you know, if you've got the right people, you can be very successful. If you get a bunch of people, which, you know, they still can be good people. I don't critique them. But if they have no, they don't want to be anywhere, you're not going far. How involved were you in hiring and putting the team together? Very, because it is the most important thing.

20:31And I would say until the end, you know, I wouldn't say I interviewed everyone, But I interviewed about 95 to 98 % of the people myself, even very simple jobs. But I just did the last interview with them. When, you know, the manager which needs these people, they need to interview if they can do the job technically. You know, if they've got the right skills, you know, technical skills, computer skills, whatever they need. But I always wanted to see if this is people which fit the culture of the team. You know, and I just sat down 15 minutes at the end before they got the job offer, you know. and very few times I had to refuse, but I sent a few back and said, go and check again because I don't know if this is the right person we want to employ and maybe if I send some people back, one out of two, they said, actually, Gunther, you're right.

21:22We interviewed them again and I think we can get a better candidate and what it does as well, the managers take a lot more care when they employ their people because they know the people come to me so they don't want to look to have done something not correctly, you know? So they interview much more focused to get the right person because they want to show them that they're doing a good job to me, you know? And it makes them more focused to get the right people. Drivers, balance between talent and cultural fit and the importance of that in a team. How do you weigh that up? The thing in F1 is F1 driver, these days, if you're not talented, you wouldn't get there.

22:03So the talent is there. Obviously, there is bigger talent, but normally when you have a small team, the really big talent you cannot get. First, I don't have the money to pay them. And secondly, they wouldn't come to a midfield team. So some people you can already exclude. So you have got a very small bond to fish in for the drivers, which actually will come to you. And the talent by most of them is there in that region. And then obviously you need to see also how they fit in, how much they are driven to do something, how much they like what you tell them. But it's a combination of talent and determination what they want to do.

22:41How price sensitive are you when it comes to drivers? And what I mean by that is like, how much did you pay a driver at Haas and how much was price and the cost of them, a driver in the decision-making to hire them? You pay them as little as you can, like everything else, you know, in life. I mean, you try to get it as efficient as possible. Everything was to a budget. I never had anything to say, hey, there is a guy out there which we could get, but we cannot afford him. The development of McLaren over the last 18 months has been incredible. What do you attribute a lot of that success to? People, first and foremost.

23:17Leadership, Andrea Stella. But it's every department has to be firing on all cylinders because everything feeds performance. So whether you're directly working on the race car or you're in the finance department, making sure that we're spending our money wisely. So every dollar we spend goes into performance, whether you're on a commercial team, which raises the revenue to be able to pay drivers and hire the best talent. So, you know, it's not just the people touching the race car that are putting performance on the racing team. If I had to pick one, it would be our people, our culture, our work ethic.

23:52But of course you then have new wind tunnel, upgraded CFD simulator. So you've got technology. You've got two great drivers. So it's a combination of all that. But if I had to put what's number one on the list would be our people. Cass, operationally, there's many successes. What did you not do with the benefit of hindsight you wish you'd done? I'm okay with what we should have done differently because we know what we should have done differently. And that's just learning from things you should have done differently. So I'm not one that looks back and goes, I wish we would have done that differently because we learned.

24:26Of course, there are things, but this is sport. You know, whether it's a football player who goes, well, I wish I would have missed that goal, or a baseball player, I wish I would have struck out, but that's sport. You know, I think it's unrealistic to think you're going to have 100 % track record. So when we do things that we would do differently now, that's just nothing more than learning. It makes us a better race team today than we were yesterday. In Formula One, you've got performance in two really different levels. You've got people driving the car that have to be at the top of their game.