Newey downplays effect of Willis' exit

Willis has left the team that he first joined in 2007 after his "job was made redundant", and Newey revealed that the team will hand more authority to "four or five" individual department heads.

"My role and my daily way of operating will stay the same as it is," said Newey, who has always admitted that he prefers to concentrate more on design work than on management.

"What does change is that we have four or five very senior people on the next level down and we will be expecting them to take on more responsibility for their departments and run in a way which means that we don't need a single technical director."

This means that the likes of chief designer Rob Marshall and chief aerodynamicist Peter Prodromou will both have to take more responsibility for managing the team's technical effort at it pushes to close the gap on Brawn in both the drivers' and constructors' championships.