Grapevine: Major Reshuffle at McLaren

The Daily Grapevine has learnt that the McLaren team is going through a major reshuffling behind the scenes for the upcoming season.

According to a McLaren insider, the Woking-based team will go through a lot of staff changes in 2001, and there are even rumours about some former members returning this year.

Team co-ordinator Jo Ramirez, who denied the rumours about his retirement earlier this year, is actually leaving McLaren and his replacement, Mike Negline - a former chief mechanic on the race team - is already in position. Ramirez is expected to retire in the middle of the 2001 season.

Steve Giles has been promoted to chief mechanic while Pat Fry, David Coulthard's former race engineer, is now the chief race engineer, with Phil Prew taking his place.

South African Anton Stipinovich, who was thought to be the software guru behind Mika Hakkinen's blistering starts last season, left the team and was replaced by Jaguar's former chief mechanic. According to the McLaren insider, Stipinovich was only in charge of the embedded systems on Coulthard's car.

Ex Systems Engineer Andy Honeywood, who left McLaren at the end of 1999, is rumoured to be in line to return to the team, after the five people that were hired to replace him resigned after a couple of months.

Also, according to the insider, many of the team members are unhappy as some may not move into Paragon - the team's new state of the art factory - as there will not be enough space due to the Mercedes SLR production staff.