Sweden, June 1978. A car shows up at the Anderstorp circuit that looks like no other. The Brabham BT46B has a huge fan at the back. Officially, it is there to cool the engine. In practice, it sucks out the air from under the car and pins it to the tarmac like a suction cup.
Niki Lauda wins the race. It is the only one that car will ever run. Nobody bans it: the governing body even rules it legal for the rest of the season. But the other teams’ protests weigh more, Brabham decides to withdraw it, and the BT46B never goes back on track. The idea was brilliant, legal under the rules of the day and, precisely for that reason, too uncomfortable for everyone else.
01 — A patternHistory repeats itself
It was not an isolated case. In the early nineties, Williams dominated with computer-controlled active suspension that could adjust the car corner by corner. By 1994 those electronic aids were banned. In 2020, Mercedes introduced a system that let the driver change the alignment of the front wheels by pushing and pulling the steering wheel. It was legal that season and banned for the next.
Since 2021, Formula 1 has gone further: on top of a budget cap for everyone, it decided that the teams with the worst results get more wind-tunnel and simulation time than the ones who win (as Formula 1 itself explains). The team at the bottom of the championship can test more than the champion.
The better you do, the less they let you try.
02 — The other halfNot every limit is unfair
It would be dishonest to tell only that part. Many Formula 1 rules exist for safety, and they have saved lives. Others stop the sport from becoming a contest of chequebooks, where one team wins for a decade and the public stops watching. A championship needs competition to exist, and that makes sense.
My discomfort is not with limits. It is with one particular kind: the limit that protects no one, and instead holds back whoever did it better so the rest feel closer. That kind of limit does not raise the level of the competition. It lowers it.
03 — Off the trackWe do it every day
What interests me in this story is not Formula 1. It is how much it looks like what happens in organisations and teams.
- The person who solves things fastest ends up with twice the work, and learns that standing out has a cost.
- Processes are designed for the weakest case, and whoever could go faster waits, because the format allows no other speed.
- A new tool, like artificial intelligence, gets banned not because it is dangerous, but because not everyone is ready to use it.
- Evaluation rewards not making mistakes, and whoever puts forward new ideas gets more wrong than whoever puts forward nothing.
None of this is done out of malice. It is done in the name of fairness, team harmony or prudence. But the cumulative effect is the same as the Brabham’s fan: the group’s best idea stays in the garage.
04 — An alternativeRaise the floor, don’t lower the ceiling
I do not write this out of arrogance. We have all been behind at something, and we have all needed help to catch up with others. That help is valuable. The problem starts when the only way to close the gap is to slow down whoever is ahead.
There is another way to think about fairness in a team: invest in the people who need to grow, with training, support and time, without asking anyone to do less than they can. Raise the floor instead of lowering the ceiling. It is harder and slower. But it is the only version of fairness that does not cost the team its best performance.
Training wheels are for learning to ride. The problem is putting them on someone who already knew how.
In the teams I lead, I try to look after both things: that nobody is left behind, and that nobody has to hide what they can do. I do not always manage it. But I am more and more convinced that excellence is not the problem to be regulated. It is the standard worth helping everyone reach.