After years where McLaren had pinned belief of a turnaround of fortunes in F1 on improved facilities and revised management structures, it is clear it is no longer simply sitting back and hoping for the best.
Instead, McLaren CEO Zak Brown and newly appointed team principal Andrea Stella have got their elbows out and accepted that if they didn’t take action – and plot an entirely new course for the squad – then it was never going to achieve its aims.
As Stella remarked this week: “We are a team with the ambition of fighting for championships, but over the last couple of seasons we have not shown a steady upward trend from an on-track competitiveness point of view.”
Their first move was shaking up things internally; implementing a new technical structure earlier this year following the decision to part ways with previous technical director James Key.
It lured Ferrari design chief David Sanchez to become part of a new F1 Technical Executive team, where he will working alongside aerodynamic TD Peter Prodromou and engineering and design head Neil Houldey, who will now work alongside Marshall instead.
But Brown and Stella knew that, if they were to make the most of the benefits of a new windtunnel and simulator that are coming on tap this year, then they had to ramp things up even more on the staffing front.
They duly captured Aston Martin aerodynamicist Mariano Alperin, but their more recent coup in luring Marshall, Red Bull’s former chief designer, is arguably their biggest success yet.
Source: Autosport