What a 24-Hour GT3 Race Can Teach Us About High-Performing Teams

Recently, my son Calan Williams competed for the third time in the historic 24 Hours of Spa, the largest GT3 race in the world. It is an enormous event, attracting more than 100,000 spectators, with more than 70 cars competing in a gruelling race that runs around the clock.

The preparation is equally enormous. Countless hours are spent by the team preparing the car, alongside extensive physical and simulator preparation by the four drivers. This is not limited to the race itself with the programme also including testing at the circuit in the month leading up to the event.

And, of course, there is the cost. Preparing a GT3 car to compete at the highest level of the sport, combined with the logistics of moving a large team and drivers from different parts of the world, represents a significant investment.

So, the intensity of the race start is extreme. All of that preparation, investment and expectation rests, in those opening laps, on the shoulders of the driver taking the start with the responsibility of navigating the risks of the early stages amongst a huge field of cars.

Unfortunately, the start to our 2026 campaign did not go to plan!

Calan's Brazilian teammate, Pedro Ebrahim, was desperately unlucky when two cars immediately in front of him collided, leaving him nowhere to go. The right front of our car was badly damaged.

Whilst frustrating, what happened next was a fascinating demonstration of high performance and leadership.

Calm under pressure

The garage of our incredible team, Century Motorsport, became a masterclass in high-performing teamwork.

The first striking thing was the overriding sense of calm which is something that, in the circumstances, most people would find difficult to comprehend.

The car was circulating at full speed halfway around the circuit, and it would be less than a minute before it entered the pits for the necessary repairs. Getting the car back onto the track quickly was critical. Losing one lap to the leader in a 24-hour race is recoverable, but losing more than one, even this early in the race, would be a significant setback.

A huge amount therefore needed to be assessed in a very short period of time.

The mechanics needed to assess the likely damage, identify which replacement parts might be required and establish who would take responsibility for each element of the repair. The engineering team needed to interpret the data to understand the extent of the damage, communicate that information to the mechanics, assess the strategic implications and begin developing a new plan.

At the same time, the Team Principal and Team Manager had to decide what role they should play.

Almost instantly, the team sprang into action - with urgency, but at the same time with complete calm.

The Head Mechanic issued some instructions, but they were minimal. The mechanics already knew exactly what needed to be done and what role each individual would play.

The Head Engineer was talking to the driver over the radio, gathering information, while the Data Engineer assessed a multitude of graphs and displays and calmly passed information to the team.

Already, a new plan was being formulated around the inevitable loss of one lap, but hopefully not two.

Less than a minute after the incident, the car entered the pits and left shortly afterwards with a new bonnet and repairs to the damaged brake ducts around the right front.

The car exited the pits and rejoined the race literally a second ahead of the Safety Car, critically narrowly avoiding the loss of a second lap to the leader.

Role clarity and trust

What struck me most about this situation was the extraordinary combination of role clarity and trust.

Everyone knew what they were responsible for. Everyone understood the contribution they needed to make. And, crucially, everyone trusted the people around them to perform their roles.

The Team Principal focused his thinking on new strategic options. The Team Manager quietly and calmly maintained oversight of the entire team from the rear of the garage, and neither intervened in the work taking place.

The mechanics and engineers remained focused on their respective roles and trusted each other to deliver.

There was no apparent need for multiple people to become involved in decisions that were already within someone else's area of responsibility. There was no frantic search for someone to take control.

The leadership was there, but it was not getting in the way of execution, and that made me think about my work with business.

What can businesses learn from this?

How do organisations create this level of role clarity, trust and performance - particularly when circumstances suddenly change?

There are established frameworks that can help. RACI, for example, is a useful model for clarifying who does what in a project, process or decision.

The "R" identifies who is Responsible for carrying out the work.

The "A" identifies who is Accountable for the outcome.

The "C" identifies who needs to be Consulted.

And the "I" identifies those who need to be Informed.

Frameworks such as this can be valuable in establishing clarity, but a framework alone does not create a high-performing team.

For that, a number of other things need to be in place such as thorough preparation, clearly understood responsibilities, the capability to execute, strong communication, and, crucially, trust and empowerment from leadership.

Century Motorsport did not suddenly develop these behaviours when the accident happened. The preparation had already taken place.Their capability had been built and the roles were clearly understood. The relationships and trust were already established.

So, when something unexpected happened, the team did not need to stop and work out how to work together, they were able to immediately focus on execution.

Leadership is not always about intervention

I think there is also an important lesson here for business leaders.

When pressure increases, there can be a natural tendency for leaders to become more involved in the detail. Decisions that would normally sit with experienced team members are escalated. Multiple people become involved. Communication increases, but clarity can decrease. The intention is almost always good, coming from a strong desire to help.

However sometimes the most valuable contribution a leader can make is to maintain oversight while allowing the people closest to the work to deliver.

That requires trust.

It also requires leaders to be clear about where their own role adds value. In the Century Motorsport garage, the Team Principal did not need to tell the mechanics how to repair the car. The mechanics were the experts in that task.

His value was in looking beyond the immediate problem and thinking about what the incident meant for the race strategy.

Leadership was not absent, it was skilfully focused where it could have the greatest impact.

High performance means adapting without lowering the ambition

There is a further lesson that I find particularly interesting.

Century Motorsport could have set the expectation simply around getting the damaged car back into the race, but they didn't. The objective remained to maximise the performance of the team and the car and continue competing.

The circumstances had changed, so the plan had to change. But the ambition did not simply disappear because something had gone wrong.

That is an important distinction for business.

High-performing organisations are not those in which everything goes according to plan. They are organisations that can respond quickly when it doesn't. They recognise reality, adapt their plans, make the best use of the capability available to them and continue to pursue the objective.

The opportunity for business

In many organisations, the difference between good execution and great execution can be less obvious than it is in elite sport.

In a 24-hour race, poor execution can be exposed within seconds. A slow pit stop, an unclear decision or a failure to communicate can immediately affect the outcome.

In business, the consequences can be much less visible and may emerge over months or even years.

That can make it easier for good intentions around team development, role clarity and leadership to fall short. Models such as RACI may be introduced, but old habits and the status quo can remain.

The lesson I take from the Century Motorsport team is that high performance is not created simply by asking people to work harder.

It is created through preparation, capability, clarity, trust and leadership.

Everyone needs to know what they own. Everyone needs to be capable of delivering it, and leaders need to trust people to do their jobs while remaining sufficiently engaged to see the bigger picture and intervene when their contribution genuinely adds value.

When things go wrong, the test is whether the team becomes more chaotic or more focused.

At Spa, under extraordinary pressure, the Century Motorsport team became more focused.

For me, that is a powerful definition of high performance, and a valuable lesson for any business seeking to develop teams capable of performing at their best when it matters most.