Leadership to Victory

It’s a few minutes past 3 in the afternoon; the sun is at its peak at the start/finish line at Le Mans before settling for the evening. The team is exhausted, sweaty, and sleep-deprived after spending the last 23 hours wrestling huge tyres and carrying a big hose of fuel when the race-worn Jaguars approached.

It isn’t the same as last year. You’re feeling less hopeful. Instead of the screaming V12s, some burbling V8s are crossing the start/finish line before the rest of the pack. That’s a soundtrack that you weren’t part for the past 12 months.

The hour ticks, and Peter Sauber and the famous Jochen Mass are dripping in Champagne after his Silver Arrows are declared victors for the 24h of Le Mans in 1989. The celebrations pass by, and later on into the evening, the devastated team packs up in an effort to move the equipment back to England.

As you’re walking away to the now-deserted track exit with only the track marshals and guards on standby, your boss, Tom Walkinshaw, turns to you in the golden hour and says: “it’s not going to be like this next year.”

Standing next to the Jaguar XJR-9 LM that famously won the previous year, former Main Board Director at TWR, Richard West, recalls his days working with Tom Walkinshaw, how he reset the team to win at Le Mans the next year, and how Group C sports car racing compared to his time in Formula One.

Prior to joining TWR, West had a successful career in Formula One, working for famous leaders such as Frank Williams and Gordon Murray, and worked closely with the likes of Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, and Ayrton Senna.

“While working for Murray at McLaren, we had won 15 out of 16 races, so we were very successful that year in 1988.” With all the success to celebrate, West then details an intriguing offer made by Tom Walkinshaw at the peak of his leadership. A job at Jaguar which would mean leaving the world of F1 and taking on new challenges in Group C sports car racing. “Tom had been very successful before with the XJS’ in the European Touring Car Championship, and of course won at Le Mans that year with this car in 1988 (nods to the XJR-9), so I went to go and have a look at the setup.”

West’s motivational expertise was needed. Walkinshaw and his team were blown backwards after the shock defeat of 1989. “We had broken the stronghold of Porsche in ’88 and entered five cars into Le Mans expecting to win, but Mercedes put a lot of money into Peter Sauber’s team and as a result, we got outclassed. It was bitter Disappointment.”

The new challenge was motivating the team at TWR and preparing them for 1990. The World Sports Car championship had various races throughout the year such as Daytona, Fuji, and Spa, but Le Mans was the staple. The one that everyone remembers a manufacturer being successful in. If your team lost at Le Mans, it was always going to be seen at a lower tier manufacturer in the sport than others. “We put a lot of time, effort, and a lot more money into the 1990 season to make sure it (losing) wouldn’t happen the next time we went.” West maintains that the 24h endurance race is the most important on the calendar and forever will be.

“When you win (at Le Mans) it’s the most incredible feeling. You feel the joys and success throughout the team and all that hard work throughout the previous year pays off.” But the run up to the 1990 race involved a lot of waking up very early each morning and churning 120% worth of effort, says West.

Tom Walkinshaw had taken over the Group 44 programme and transformed the Jaguar racing team into a dominant force by the late 1980s. West reports the engineering and technological finesse of the winning XJR-9 and XJR-12 cars were “just as good” as Formula One. “Sports car racing was going head to head with Formula One at that time, when you think these were going at 230/240mph prior to the chicane at Le Mans, you have to think how incredible they were at the time.”

West’s thoughts reference Tony Southgate’s genius design of the carbon fibre tub along with the all-aluminium 7.0 litre V12 engine, made the Jaguar XJRs some of the most advanced Group C cars of their era. They are famed for bringing back Jaguar’s glorious presence to motorsport for the first time since the famous Moss/Hawthorn era of the successful C and D-Types. The pathway to success, therefore, would never be light of pressure. West immediately found that leading TWR took a very different approach to his previous years in Formula One.

“In ’89, I was immediately comparing McLaren to TWR. In F1, there’s a lot of competition between the manufacturers, but I found it was a very different type of racing. The guys (at TWR) were probably a bit more relaxed, but that’s not to say they were less determined. The teams were big. We used to go with about 100-120 people, and that entire week of effort at Le Mans is very exhausting. But it’s the culmination of 11 and a half months of work and it was different in Formula One in that regard.”

After his stint in the busy, determined world of motorsport, West has quietly stepped back from the track and now communicates his learnings as an international keynote speaker for the world’s leading companies, covering the topics of adaptation, leadership, and most importantly, teamwork. The Jaguar Enthusiasts Club are proud to have West as the Chair of the club’s Events Committee, and he can be found orchestrating various Jaguar events throughout each year.

From his busy days at Williams to motivating major businesses to success, West has a vastly fascinating life, and it suddenly became a tiny bit easier to see not only how TWR were drowning in champagne in 1990, but ultimately, how West’s principles of teamwork and strong leadership eventually got them there. So, if he ever lectures in your meeting, you better keep both ears open – it might be some of the most valuable advice ever given to you.