Driving the F1 machine

The Straits Times, October 27, 2007
by Tay Yek Keak


Two motor racing experts talk about business lessons one can get from Formula One and how Singapore should market itself as the Monaco of the East


THE race for the Formula One championship may be over this season but the business side of the sport, according to the BBC documentary series Formula For Success, does not ease into a pit stop for a break.

'Three hundred and sixty-five days a year it's a business that literally sits in the middle of the marketing platforms commensurate with the Olympics and the Football World Cup,' declares Mr Richard West, 51, consultant expert to the series.

Mr West, a motorsport marketing and PR veteran who has worked with F1 teams Williams and McLaren since the 1980s, and the show's executive producer Narendhra Morar spoke to Life! on the phone from London, enthusing about the sport and pitching an angle to sell Singapore, set to hold a Grand Prix next year, as the Monaco of the East.

The series, comprising eight brisk and interesting half-hour episodes, looks at the expertise and competitive strategies in the highly driven - no pun intended - industry and how they can be adopted by the modern businesses of today.

It covers aspects such as leadership, planning, talent, technology, branding, sponsorship and globalisation. It has finished its weekly run here but will be repeated today and tomorrow on BBC World.

Mr Morar, 54, is also the commissioning editor who came up with the idea. He says that his project was enhanced by an insightful book which West co-wrote called Performance At The Limit, which looked at useful business lessons drawn from the F1 model, estimated in the series to be a US$4-billion (S$5.8-billion) industry today.

Defining high-octane motor racing as being more than just cars going around in circles, Mr Morar explains: 'Clearly the area of F1 as a business and the theory behind or the practice of F1 can be applied to other businesses.'

He elaborates: 'The classic example I can give you is the pit stop in F1. It's the best example of teamwork anywhere and that is absolutely crucial in any successful business.'

Describing the process of a pit stop - the race car pulls in for instant servicing where refuelling, tyre changes and damage checks are all done within a matter of seconds - he tells of each crew member having to do his bit in absolute precision and timing, otherwise 'they're going to lose hundredths of a second and that could mean winning or losing the race'.

He brings up the example of the Tornado fighter jet featured in one of the episodes and the lesson learnt by the British Royal Air Force in copying the F1 method and placing tools and parts next to jets needing servicing and repair.

'Before studying the practices employed by motor racing, the RAF stored their equipment elsewhere even though they had to scramble their planes in cases of emergency. This is one of the tricks they learnt from Formula One.'

And because everything moves so fast, literally, in the sport, the culture in F1 of innovation, invention, re-invention and relocation as it undergoes a geographical shift from Euro-centric venues to emerging markets such as Singapore and India holds other beneficial relevance.

'One of the things that any good sport has to do is to constantly evolve and change and try out different things,' Mr Morar says.

'Some of those things work, such as the first-ever night race scheduled for Singapore next year which is an exciting development. And some of them don't.'

Of the recent McLaren-Ferrari secrets-stealing controversy, he opines that it is not good if it had persisted because it would have eroded the brand as 'people the world over always want to be entertained by a sport which they think is fair'.

Having worked with drivers such as Ayrton Senna and past champs Michael Schumacher, Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost, Mr West lets in on the human side of things.

'When the Grand Prix comes to Singapore, you will find that the drivers, on the whole, are immensely colourful characters. In the 1970s and 1980s, racers tended to lead sort of playboy lifestyles. But the drivers of today are far more focused and extremely dedicated to what they do.

'They're ambassadors as well as high-performance drivers and are very aware of their need to help promote and publicise the venues of the world that they go to.'

Now selling that venue of the future - Singapore next year - according to Mr Morar, would require a certain re-branding straight out of the Formula One formbook.

'Teamwork is crucial to making it all come together,' he says, 'and it's going to be a really exciting race. If I were the marketing person for the F1 in Singapore, I would brand it as the Monaco of the East. You've got the sea, you've got the street circuit, you've got a clean, efficient well-run city that's wealthy and you're exactly the equivalent of Monaco.'

The marketing man, Mr West, adds his expertise.

'The most important thing is a very structured and very far-reaching PR campaign to publicise and continually impress upon people that this fantastic event, the Grand Prix, is coming to Singapore. It puts the entire spotlight of the world upon your country for the duration of the event.

'You've done exactly the right thing in bringing Formula One to Singapore and I'm very sure that you will achieve great success,' he states with fuelled-up confidence.