I’ve been imagining how my old colleagues at Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team are feeling as they arrive at work today. Nothing beats the atmosphere around the factory the day after a race win.
For the most part, working at an F1 team is just like any other job; you turn up, do your work and go home again. However, there are very few jobs where the impact of your work is played out to a global audience, where a tenth of a second can mean the difference between winning and losing, and the emotional highs and lows have such intensity. There is no hiding in F1, no waiting until the end of the quarter to see how the results have gone, no wondering if what you are doing is making a difference – everyone in a Formula 1 team knows that their work matters.
So today in Brackley, team members will be arriving with a feeling of satisfaction of a job well done. The exhilaration of the win yesterday will have subsided to be replaced by a confidence, a spring in the step and a smile as they congratulate each other when they see their colleagues.
The race debrief in the race bays, a sea of PETRONAS green race-winners t-shirts, with a glass of bubbly in hand, won’t be triumphalist. Yes, this is the second win in a row, but the first was down to luck when Max and Lando collided. Lewis’ win yesterday was balanced by the DNF for George. There will be an honest analysis of what went well and what went wrong, with an understanding of just how narrow the margins of victory were for Lewis; a couple more laps and Max would have had a fighting chance of taking first place.
Above all, there will be a sense of humility because this is not the end of the season; it is just one result, albeit a great one. As they leave the debrief, their minds will already be focussed on the next race, eager to do what they can individually and collectively to perform at the highest level at the Hungaroring in two weeks time, in the hope that the Racing Gods allow them to taste the sweetness of victory again.
