Formula One may be decided in milliseconds, but success is built long before race starts
That was the central theme of “Finishing First: Motorsport Lessons on Competition,” an immersive Block Week course led by Wharton Prof. Henning Piezunka and King’s College Prof. Paolo Aversa in Italy’s famed Motor Valley. During the intensive week, students paired morning classroom sessions with visits to legendary organizations such as Ducati, Racing Bulls, Lamborghini, Dallara, and Ferrari to examine how elite organizations build and sustain competitive advantage.
Rather than treating motorsport as entertainment, the course explored it as a laboratory for strategy. Students learned frameworks for competition, innovation, and organizational performance before applying those concepts during factory tours and conversations with executives, engineers, and racing professionals.
Along the way, they discovered lessons that extend far beyond motorsport. We asked a student from each of our three cohorts (East Coast, West Coast, Global) to tell us about their experience in Italy. Here is what they shared.
Competition Is an Endurance Sport
For Akshit (Ash) Bhatia, WG ’27, director at Silicon Valley Bank, the course offered a new way to think about competition in his own industry.
Working with venture-backed startups, Bhatia sees organizations constantly searching for sustainable competitive advantages. Formula One provided a compelling comparison, where equally talented teams continually look for the smallest edge.
One of his biggest takeaways came from comparing different forms of racing.
“Formula One is about minimizing mistakes because the margin for error is so small,” he says. “But endurance racing felt much more like business. Things inevitably go wrong, and success depends on how well you adapt, troubleshoot, and keep moving toward your goal.”
Among the week’s company visits, Dallara stood out most. Bhatia was struck by the company’s engineering heritage and the culture created by founder Gian Paolo Dallara, who still visits the company daily in his 90s.
“The focus wasn’t just on profits,” Bhatia says. “It was on people, passion, and building excellence over generations.”
Students happened to visit during Dallara’s annual friends-and-family celebration, joining employees at the company’s racetrack for a barbecue after participating in a Formula One-style pit-stop challenge.
“It was an incredible example of how culture becomes part of a company’s competitive advantage,” Bhatia says.
“You couldn’t recreate this experience on your own,” he says. “There’s a huge difference between hearing an executive speak on campus and seeing how an organization operates in its own environment.”
Building High-Performing Teams
For Fong Lin, WG’27, people partner at Harvey, the course reinforced lessons she applies every day in human resources.
As a Formula One fan, Lin enrolled to better understand what happens behind the scenes of elite performance. The combination of classroom instruction and company visits exceeded her expectations.
“The lectures gave us the context we needed before each visit,” she says. “It made everything we saw much more meaningful.”
Throughout the week, Lin found herself viewing motorsport through the lens of organizational design. “You don’t build great organizations by hiring the best individual performers,” she says. “You build teams that work exceptionally well together.”
A highlight came during the pit stop simulation at Dallara, where students worked in teams to change a race car tire under pressure.
“It looked so much easier than it actually was,” she says. “Our fastest team finished in about 8 seconds. Then you realize Formula One crews do it in under 2.”
Lin was equally inspired by the culture she observed throughout Motor Valley.
“In technology, we talk constantly about growth and ROI,” she says. “Here, people talked about family, community, and craftsmanship. It was a reminder that organizations can build excellence in different ways.”
One lesson she plans to bring back to work came from Dallara’s philosophy: “You either win or you learn.”
“It made me think about how organizations define success,” she says. “When leaders clearly define what winning looks like, every part of the organization from hiring to performance management can align around that goal.”
Beyond academics, Lin says the Block Week created meaningful opportunities to connect with classmates. One of her favorite memories came after the Dallara pit-stop challenge, when she and several classmates, including Bhatia, walked the racetrack together, reflecting on their careers, the week’s lessons, and their aspirations.
“We looked around and thought, ‘This is unbelievable,’” Lin says. “Being in Italy, learning together, and having the time to really get to know classmates from other cohorts made the experience even more memorable.”
Lessons in Precision, Preparation, and Performance
For Marat Shaimardanov, WG ’27, co-CEO of RG Gold in Kazakhstan, the connection between Formula One and mining operations was immediately clear.
“In mining, every day [that] our plant is shut down for maintenance costs $2 million,” he says. “Like a Formula One pit stop, success depends on preparation, training, and flawless execution.”
He enrolled in the course hoping to better understand how elite racing teams coordinate engineering, operations, and teamwork under intense pressure. He found a much deeper academic experience than he expected.
“We studied research on strategy, competition, and the history of Italy’s Motor Valley before seeing those ideas come to life inside the companies,” says Shaimardanov. “As the week progressed, each visit built upon the last, illustrating how decades of innovation, organizational culture, and business transformation have sustained the region’s competitive advantage.”
Shaimardanov also valued the opportunity to connect with classmates across Wharton’s global community. Over shared meals, group projects, and days of lectures and site visits, conversations extended well beyond motorsports.
One of the week’s biggest surprises was the diversity of perspectives among his classmates. Engineers, investors, HR leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives all viewed the lessons through the lens of their own industries, making discussions as valuable as the company visits themselves.
For Shaimardanov, that’s what made the experience distinctly Wharton. “The professors gave us the research and frameworks first,” he says. “Then we went into world-class companies to see those ideas in practice and discussed what we observed with classmates from completely different industries. It created a level of learning that would be very difficult to replicate anywhere else.”
By Meghan Laska
Posted: August 3, 2026
