Mercedes F1 team
When we look for the greatest gains in productivity and employee engagement, they are usually attributed to clearly defining each team member’s role. The science of “role setting” drives productivity, while the art of aligning roles with people’s skills fosters engagement and innovation. As corporate leaders, we have much to learn from outstanding examples of role setting outside our field. That’s why today I’m speaking with Ryan McGarva, a former mechanic and member of one of the fastest pit crews in the world, Mercedes F1. He will share how they hone their skills, prioritize quality and safety, and continuously improve through design, practice, teamwork, and feedback loops—creating unbelievable turnaround times. Join us for a conversation on how to take your team to a world-class level.
“There was obviously the plan A. In strategy they're trying to plan for the quickest way to the end of the race, how many pit stops they're gonna do, what the ideal strategy would be. But then they also come up with a plan B, a plan C, what's gonna happen if it rains, what's gonna happen if there's a safety car. And it's the same in the pit stops. You're always trying to plan for every eventuality so that when it comes to it, you don't have to think in the sort of high pressure moment.”
“It was a very, like, no blame culture. If something went wrong, they tended to sort of blame the process or blame the equipment. We'd look at why it went wrong, and then they'd put something in place to make sure that that didn't happen again.”
“I remember running out to do that pit stop, and it was like that was the most stressed probably that I've ever been. But in the back of your head, you knew it was just the same as you'd done every other time before, so you just had to take a deep breath, focus.”
“It becomes like muscle memory almost. You don't, you're not actually thinking about what you're doing, which sounds a bit odd maybe. But it just becomes like breathing. You don't think about it. You just, you do the action without thinking.”
“Everyone needs to perform. It doesn't matter how small a job it is, every single part of that stop has to happen, otherwise it won't work.”
“When things are going wrong, that's how you learn. Because if it's all nice, everything's happy and rosy all the time, then you don't ever learn anything. You don't move forward. You don't make progress. It's only when things are going wrong that you can then improve things.”
“You were seeing things going wrong. You were seeing things happening that weren't being fixed, if you know what I mean, and you were seeing the same thing happening over and over, and it became very frustrating because in F1 we react to that type of thing very quickly.”
In the pit lane, the two-second stop is only the visible tip. Everything underneath it, thousands of practice reps, sensor data, pre-race scenario planning, is what makes the visible moment calm and reliable. The lesson travels: pressure is managed before the pressure arrives.
When failures go to processes and equipment rather than people, two things happen: the real cause gets fixed, and crew members feel safe enough to report near-misses before they become real misses. Safety and improvement are the same mechanism.
Corner crews racing each other, car crews racing the garage opposite, the whole team racing every other team in the pit lane: none of this prevented the crew from dropping everything to help when a car crashed. Shared purpose set the ceiling on competition.
In a pit stop, the smallest job undone stops the car as surely as the most visible one. Ryan makes this explicit for building cars too: the most junior person in the garage can cause a retirement. Recognising that interdependence is what turns a group into a crew.
Ryan's sharpest observation after leaving F1 was watching the same mistakes repeat without correction. In Formula 1, anything that goes wrong is analysed and closed off immediately. That single habit, not talent, not budget, is what compounds into excellence.
Answers come from this show’s transcript and nothing else. If Ryan McGarva didn’t discuss it here, you’ll be told so rather than guessed at.