After a reshuffle, which suite for McLaren?

Last year, when Boullier said the McLaren chbadis was one of the best in F1, the implication was that their Honda engine was holding them back. The team has therefore made the bold decision to put an end to its working relationship with the Japanese automaker and to give up the resulting financial benefits, in favor of a Renault customer offer.

In theory, if McLaren had one of the best chbadis, they should be level with Red Bull, currently third in the constructors' championship with three wins on the board in 2018. The reality is that the MCL33 is far from this pace, Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne fighting to make the Top 10 shots on goal. qualifier, not to mention a challenge for the podium.

To be honest with Boullier, Honda's employment contract to replace Mercedes' customer arrangement had been sorted even before it arrived at the team. But the pressure on Boullier, whose mandate was to overhaul the technical structure of the team, has increased in recent weeks while the McLaren form has disappeared.

And on the eve of the British Grand Prix, McLaren announced a revision. Boullier shares with McLaren Racing's Chief Operating Officer, Simon Roberts, overseeing production, engineering and logistics. Andrea Stella – who has worked with Alonso at Ferrari – is a performance director, who will lead the team on the track and, according to general manager Zak Brown, will be "ultimately responsible" for the performance of the car.

The team's headquarters in Woking after the announcement, Brown said the resignation of Boullier, which he received Tuesday night, "was not a surprise". He added, "We've been under a lot of pressure and underperformance for too long, so Eric and I have had a lot of conversations about how we can improve McLaren." In the end, he wants what's best for McLaren as we all do, so when he finally made his decision it was not a surprise, it was something we had talked about our challenges and the potential ways of it. remedy. "

Ordering McLaren's house

McLaren did not bring the car that he hoped to have in time for Australia. Was not ready before the fifth race of the season in Spain, since then their performance has actually dropped.They currently occupy sixth place in the constructors' championship with 44 points, 145 in the drift of Red Bull in third position. After scoring points in each of the first five During the races, they managed to do it just once in the next four

. Since Boullier joined McLaren before 2014, they have managed only two podiums. The team has not won a race since the end of the 2012 season in Brazil. Their last drivers' championship dates from 2008. It is necessary to go back 10 years before 1998 for their last championship of the manufacturers. McLaren slipped for a while.

Part of the problem, according to Brown, is that the team has been constantly destabilized because of internal structural changes, which has contributed to McLaren's failures, leaving them where they are today.

"Our results this year have shown that we have big performance problems," admitted Brown. "We weigh well below our weight given the history, the talent of the people, the resources and the technology at our disposal."

"This comes from a highlight of" To be destabilized for many years within our team. If you look at our last seven or eight years, we have had different CEOs, different shareholders, shareholders and shareholders, CEOs and CEOs, and we really have not managed to stabilize ourselves to rebuild with "We did a lot of work backstage and we are now taking steps to rebuild McLaren and make us a winning organization.It's a completely unacceptable situation in which we find ourselves, it's very painful for all of us at McLaren, but the only thing we will not do, it's to stop. "

Success Will Take Time

Mercedes took several years as the dominant force they're in today. same thing can be said for Red Bull, before winning four double world championships on the rebound.And Ferrari has waited more than two decades between titles before Michael Schumacher won five on the rebound.Not surprisingly Brown concedes that it will take McLaren time to become a force again.

"We have announced this big change to put our house in order, we will not react unexpectedly, the team needs a period stabilization so that we can build a solid foundation, "he said." The situation was not created overnight and therefore will not be repaired overnight, it is so our first step to getting back to our victories. "19659002" We are very lucky to have a brilliant technical race team me and the women who work at McLaren and who are going from the front as we start to simplify the organization, speed up the organization, because I think that our structure and our way of working have brought us where we are today.

Alonso does all this?

The double world champion's contract expires at the end of the season and the team wants to keep it. But it remains unclear whether Alonso, who holds one of the biggest salaries on the grid, will remain for a fifth season at McLaren.

Brown believes that Alonso offers good value and added that he had consulted the Spanish "Fernando is someone who has a great story here at McLaren, he is an badet huge, "he said. "I think you all would recognize that it is, we think, the best driver on the grid." While you all see his magic on the race track, what you can not see is his magic off the race track. and the valuable contributions that he brings and the ideas that he has in the performance of the car, in the performance of the team.

"So, Fernando is someone I've been looking at since I started because he knows what a world championship looks like." I appreciate his opinion. from this process, he helps advance McLaren.

"As for his salary, I think it's worth every penny. We have a total commitment from our shareholders, so we have the resources we need to spend in the areas we need. This is not one or, so I think we derive great value from our contribution to Fernando's salary. "

They say that admitting you have problems is half the battle, but skinning and resolving them will take time, and now we have to wait to see if the latest revision gives them the tools to win the next battle and give them a chance to win the war …

– Lawrence Barretto