Lessons from the F1 Pit Crew Speed, Trust, and Precision in Leadership
Recently I had the privilege to visit the RealPage headquarters in Richardson, Texas for their Affordable Leadership Summit. It was my first time walking through the doors of a company I have partnered with and advocated for across more than two decades.
Beyond the technology and the partnerships, what struck me most about the event was the caliber of the conversations. Leaders from across the affordable housing industry came together to discuss real issues: staffing, regulation, technology, and the pace of change. But one presentation stood out for how it connected something seemingly unrelated to housing with the very essence of leadership.
That was the session with Savas Karas, who opened with a simple story about an F1 pit crew.
The 2.4 Second Lesson
Savas told us about how a Formula 1 team once improved its average pit stop time from 2.4 seconds to 1.8 seconds.
On paper, that sounds like a small adjustment. Six-tenths of a second hardly seems worth noting. But in the context of a 200-mile-per-hour race, that improvement translates to an 800-foot advantage on every lap.
In Formula 1, the pit stop is one of the most choreographed team performances in sports. Each crew member knows their job to the millisecond. There is no freelancing, no overlap, no ego. Every motion is practiced, refined, and reviewed until it becomes instinct.
When the car stops, twenty people move in perfect harmony. Tires are changed, fuel lines connect, adjustments are made, and the driver roars away again. All of that happens faster than most people can take a single breath.
The power of the analogy is not in the speed itself but in what it takes to achieve it. Speed is not a goal. It is the byproduct of trust, clarity, and discipline.
Precision Beats Pressure
In property management and operations leadership, the pace can feel just as relentless. Every day brings new fires to put out, new compliance demands, and new expectations from ownership or regulators. It is easy to confuse activity with progress.
But speed without precision leads to burnout. The F1 analogy reminds us that real performance comes from coordination, not chaos. The pit crew is not fast because they rush. They are fast because they prepare, rehearse, and trust one another completely.
The same is true in our organizations.
When you build processes that define roles clearly, when you train people to operate within those systems, and when you remove unnecessary steps that create friction, speed follows naturally. The goal is not to go faster for its own sake. The goal is to move efficiently toward shared success.
A well-run property management operation should feel like a practiced pit crew: everyone knows their lane, communication is clear, and there is full confidence that the person beside you will execute their role.
That is what operational excellence looks like.
Trust as a Performance Multiplier
Trust is the invisible fuel of any team. It replaces micromanagement with accountability. It allows people to move quickly because they know someone else will catch what they miss.
In high-performing teams, trust is not granted automatically. It is earned through repetition, reliability, and shared standards.
The F1 team cannot afford to guess if the tire gun will work or if the fuel connection will hold. They trust it because they have tested it. They have practiced it hundreds of times under pressure.
In our world, trust is built the same way. It is created when site staff follow through on what they promise. When corporate teams provide accurate information on time. When leadership responds with clarity and consistency.
The faster we move as an organization, the more that trust matters. Without it, every decision slows down under the weight of doubt. With it, decisions accelerate because people believe in the process and in one another.
Everyone Owns Their Lane
During the presentation, Savas emphasized one simple truth: everyone on the team owns their piece of the process.
That statement applies directly to property management. A maintenance technician owns the condition of the unit. A compliance specialist owns the integrity of the file. A regional owns communication and accountability across sites. A vice president owns clarity, direction, and culture.
When every person owns their lane, performance compounds. When they do not, inefficiency spreads.
The F1 team does not have a single person yelling instructions over the noise of the track. They have trust, rhythm, and readiness. Each role complements the others.
In our operations, we can achieve the same level of rhythm by clarifying expectations, empowering people to act, and creating a system where everyone understands how their work connects to the mission.
When people know why their role matters, they perform with pride.
Small Adjustments, Big Gains
The improvement from 2.4 seconds to 1.8 seconds did not come from a single innovation. It came from hundreds of micro-adjustments.
Someone redesigned the wheel gun for better grip. Someone recalibrated the lift system. Someone improved communication between the driver and the pit wall. Each small change built on the last.
That is how true optimization happens in property management. It is rarely one big initiative that transforms a portfolio. It is dozens of small, consistent improvements that build momentum over time.
A new inspection tracker that eliminates duplicate data entry. A better vendor approval process that shortens turnaround time. A communication template that reduces missed steps between regional and site.
When you treat improvement as a continuous process instead of a one-time project, your operation starts to feel like that 1.8 second pit stop: fast, clean, and confident.
The Human Side of Precision
There is also something deeply human about that pit crew analogy. The F1 team’s speed depends not just on skill but on trust in one another’s humanity. They know when to support, when to step back, and when to lean in.
Leadership is no different. The best leaders set the pace, but they also set the tone. They make it safe to ask questions, to speak up when something feels off, and to correct mistakes without shame.
Speed and humanity can coexist. In fact, they depend on each other. Systems without empathy burn out people. Empathy without systems burns out results.
A leader’s job is to balance both.
Bringing It Back Home
Walking through the RealPage headquarters and sitting in that room full of affordable housing leaders reminded me that our industry is its own kind of race. The variables are constant: time, budget, compliance, resident need. The challenge is how we coordinate the people and processes that meet those demands.
The F1 story captures the essence of what operational excellence can look like in our world. Clarity replaces chaos. Trust replaces hesitation. And preparation replaces pressure.
When those elements come together, performance improves without anyone feeling rushed.
That is what separates good organizations from great ones.
My Takeaway
Speed alone is meaningless. Precision gives speed its value.
As leaders, our goal is not to make people work faster. It is to help them work smarter, with trust and alignment. That is how a pit crew shaves six-tenths of a second off their time, and it is how we can create measurable improvement in our own teams.
Leadership is about creating rhythm. When your team trusts the system and each other, the results take care of themselves.
That is the real lesson from the pit crew.
