How McLaren plans to make itself great again

Claire Williams approached McLaren chief operating officer Jonathan Neale at the Bahrain Grand Prix with a question: "How have you guys gone so far forward insuch a short time?"

Williams might well ask. Not only does she have her own problems to solve, but McLaren's recovery from a year it ended with the second slowest car to getting cars into the top 10 on the grid three times out of a possible four in the first two races, has been one of the stand-out features of 2019 so far.

Neale's reply? "A lot of hard work."

After a dire start to 2018, McLaren had a corporate moment of clarity. The result was a wholesale restructuring - and its effect has been clear at the start of this season.

Interestingly, McLaren's progress on track has been inversely proportional to the tenor of its public pronouncements. McLaren's build up to 2019 was a study 
in understatement. There were no bold predictions; all that was projected was a seriousness about the task at hand - the need to rebuild - and a recognition that it would take time.

"When you have issues," chief executive officer Zak Brown says, "you have to look in the mirror. And the first step is acknowledging and recognising you've got issues and it took us too long to get there."

The decline started in 2013, McLaren's first winless season since 2006. In 2014, the team was at least two seconds a lap slower than Mercedes despite having the same engine. 
Then came the Honda era, characterised by blaming the engine for all the team's shortcomings, and claiming 
it still had one of the best chassis in F1.

It took a switch to Renault engines in 2018 to give McLaren the jolt of reality it needed to realise just how far its chassis performance had fallen behind the best.

Moving to Renault was, in hindsight, an expensive mistake - it cost McLaren in the region of a net $100m a year, taking into account the loss of free engines and Honda's sponsorship, and the cost of buying a Renault engine; and the Honda engine is now within spitting distance of the best. But it was a necessary mistake.

"I don't think we would have known [otherwise]," Brown says, "because what the Renault engine gave us was a great data point against two other teams. When you're in with a single engine manufacturer you just don't have any reference. We thought we'd come out a lot stronger than we did. Another team with Renault engines [Red Bull] was winning races, so it's not the engine. It's got to be us. And we have now recognised that and have moved towards our issues."

Revamping the technical team

That process has been a painful one. McLaren has been turned upside down in the past 12 months. Over three months last year, three key figures left - chief technical officer Tim Goss in April, then racing director Eric Boullier and engineering director Matt Morris in July. Of the senior design team that started 2018, only head of aerodynamics Peter Prodromou is still in place.

Meanwhile, a major programme of recruitment and restructuring was started. Double CART Champ Car champion and 2003 Indianapolis 500 winner Gil de Ferran, who had started work as a consultant at the Spanish Grand Prix in May, was appointed sporting director at 
the same time as Boullier left. Andrea Stella, who had joined McLaren as chief engineer in 2015 from Ferrari, was promoted to performance director. And McLaren signed James Key from Toro Rosso as technical director. Key started work at this year's Bahrain GP.

In addition Pat Fry - a long-time McLaren engineer-cum-designer who had left to join Ferrari in 2010, which sacked him at the end of 2014 - returned as engineering director in September. This was after it became clear to Brown, during conversations with employees, how well respected Fry was within McLaren as someone who worked hard and was "very direct and non-political".

Before the end of the season, Brown identified Andreas Seidl, the former boss of Porsche's successful Le Mans programme, as the man he wanted to lead the entire F1 operation. The German started work as managing director on 1 May.

The point of all this was not only to make sure the right people were in place, but to create a clear chain of command, something Boullier's Goss-Morris-Prodromou triumvirate did not provide.

"I wanted to simplify the structure," Brown explains. "We didn't have a technical director. It's now very simple - Andreas reports to me, James Key reports to him, Pat Fry and Andrea Stella report to James. It's clear now who's doing what."

Instilling the right culture

It's notable - and some would say downright impressive - that McLaren's progress in 2019 has come after a season of such upheaval and from a technical team that was very much still a work in progress.

The first key elements of the 2019 design were laid down with Stella, Prodromou, de Ferran and operations director Simon Roberts - the last two very much not design engineers - in charge. When Fry joined, he and Stella became effective co-design leaders. The new recruits and direction were a key part of the rebuilding process.

"You gotta do things differently," Brown says. "So we've done everything, from different structure, to some new people, to promoting some people, some people aren't here anymore. I don't think it's any one of those, but you're not going to get there with more of the same. You've got to make some changes. Our biggest failing previously was a lack of teamwork, not the lack of individual talent."

Are Seidl and Key the right men to lead McLaren to a successful future? Key has never led a winning team, so inevitably has something still to prove. At the same time, key figures at Red Bull say if they had thought Key was that special, they'd have moved him into the senior team by now.

Be that as it may, Key was in demand. Before joining McLaren, he'd been poached by Williams to be its technical director, only for the recruitment of Paddy Lowe - ill-starred as it has turned out to be - to force Williams to back out of that commitment to Key. With Key available, Brown pounced.

As for Seidl, the 46-year-old German has F1 experience, through his time as a senior figure at BMW's F1 programme from 2000-09, and under his leadership Porsche dominated the World Endurance Championship for three years.

"His reputation, the drivers that have driven for him, people that have worked for him, people I knew within the VW group, people I know within F1 who know him, was extremely good," Brown says. "He is technical and engineering [focused] and understands power units, so he has the skillset. All the team bosses have different skills and his was very much performance of the race car and racing team, and that's what I want someone focused on because they need to be complementary to my skillset. To get another one of me 
isn't what the team needs.

"I like his age, in the sense he can be here for a long time. I like his directness. We get along very well, and I think much of building a successful team is getting the right personalities. That is one of the challenges we had before. There was probably a little too much politics inside the team. Everyone we have lined up now, we are on the same team, we are rolling together, they get along really well, we push each other hard."

Building a winning infrastructure

Had McLaren not already made such obvious progress at the start of 2019, there might have been questions about the effectiveness of the changes behind the scenes - even if there would have been an acceptance the new structure needed time to bed down.

But to already show improved performance at the start of the season, even before Seidl and Key had started work, has been taken as a sign that McLaren is already back on the right track.

"Forward progress helps a lot," Brown says. "To make it into Q3 in Australia was a big boost to the team. Winter testing, having some really good days - big boost to the team. All you can do is get the team moving forward. Culture takes care of itself. You can't mandate culture. All you do is you get everyone rowing in the same direction and then success, even if it's in small incremental steps, becomes contagious. And that's what drives forward culture.

"All you can do is lead the way. So, what I have tried to do is: 'Head down, hard work, look in the mirror, incremental steps', and then those little wins are going to be what drives culture. There's a real hunger that I needed to turn from frustration to positive energy, and then all you can do is make incremental steps."

With Brown's new management structure in place, attention inevitably turns to McLaren's facilities and whether they are fit for purpose. The McLaren Technology Centre is an architectural wonder but in the current F1, where the likes of Mercedes employs more than 1000 people, it is simply not big enough, because it also houses McLaren Automotive and Applied Technologies. That should be fixed by the expected budget cap, which should peg staff numbers. But MTC is lacking in other ways, too.

Limitations in McLaren's own windtunnel have forced the team to do aerodynamic R&D in Toyota's facility in Cologne for the past few years. That's not a viable long-term solution for a team that has aspirations of one day returning to winning. So, does McLaren need to invest in a new windtunnel?

"That is as we speak under review," Brown says. "That is something that Pat Fry, the aero team, Andreas are looking at - what do we do in the future? We recognise we are not in the most optimum situation and what is most optimum is what we will be doing." Any final decision will be based on the form of the final 2021 rules and the restrictions they place on windtunnel usage. "Is it better to stay where we are?" Brown asks, "but that windtunnel needs some upgrades? Do you move? Do we do a new one? Do we upgrade ours? And we have been waiting, as part of that is 'what does F1 look like?'"

He says the answer is "getting clearer now" and "we have a view". But he won't say for now what that is. And then there is the question of whether McLaren needs to partner with a manufacturer again if it is to have realistic ambitions of winning another championship.

The Honda experience showed the downsides of that approach, but at the same time the benefits to any team of the chassis and engine departments being fully integrated, when that works well, are clear - as Mercedes has demonstrated over the last few years. And then there are the financial gains.

The reality, though, is that a factory partnership will likely not be available to McLaren in the near future - there is no new car company waiting in the wings to come in, and those that are in F1 currently already have their partners. But Brown does not believe this is necessarily a restricting factor.

"Red Bull won races with Renault so there is no reason why we shouldn't be able to in the future," he argues. "We are not in a position to win races now, but that's not a power-unit issue. Our car's not fast enough yet. Of course everyone would love works status with your own power and the economics that come along with that, but I don't think it's mandatory to be able to win. We've got a long way to go before we have to worry about it. But if you gave me another 10kw - and by the way I think all the engines are very close right now - we wouldn't be competing for the championship."

The finishing touches

Fernando Alonso's decision to stop driving in F1 at the end of 2018 meant McLaren entered a new season without a driver who had won at least one race for the first time since 1994, when the line-up was Mika Häkkinen and Martin Brundle.

Alonso was a gold standard, and a guarantee the driver was getting the best out of the car. He would be a loss to any team. But the reality is that Carlos Sainz Jr and Lando Norris is exactly the driver line-up a team at McLaren's current level should have. A solid, proven driver of several years' experience and a very talented and promising rookie are more appropriate for a team in the upper midfield than employing one of the all-time greats at a cost of $25m a year (or indeed $40m, as Alonso was paid in the Honda era) to struggle to get into the top 10.

"Carlos has a lot of experience and it's good he has been in a couple of different teams," Brown says. "Lando has proven extremely quick. So as far as ultimate performance of how fast our racecar is, those drivers will get the most out of it. Lando doesn't have the experience of Fernando, so the type of feedback you get from Fernando will take some time to develop. [But] Carlos is in his fifth year in the sport, so we're comfortable with our drivers."

Sainz or Norris might yet establish themselves as A-listers. If not, a superstar can wait until McLaren has a car that can do one justice. The main task now is getting back into a position where the team can build exactly that.

McLaren is under no illusions that winning races, let alone dominating in the fashion it has in the past, is some years away. The work of the last 12 months has been about two key things: accepting - for the first time in six years - the reality of where it is; and putting in place the building blocks for getting out of that situation.

The evidence of the first part of 2019 is that McLaren is starting to head in the right direction. China was a reality check. The cars qualified 14th and 15th and the track showed up the major flaw of this year's car, a lack of front-end grip - the exact opposite of the rear instability of 2018. But all tracks are not China, and as Brown puts it: "We are in a rebuild process and it is going to be a journey." Azerbaijan was duly better - both cars back in the top 10 in qualifying and the race.

"The key," de Ferran adds, "is to be humble, focus on the job in front of you. Then things will take care of themselves."

The role of the Bahrainis

When McLaren was in the process of splitting from Honda, one of the questions asked most often was how the team would cope with the financial shortfall. The answer was usually: "We're lucky to have very supportive shareholders."

In other words, the owners are rich, and prepared to pay what it takes - up to a point - for success. McLaren's owners are known as "the Bahrainis" - shorthand for Mumtalakat, the Bahraini government's sovereign wealth fund, run by Shaikh Mohamed Bin Isa Al Khalifa, a member of the Gulf state's royal family. He is McLaren's chairman.

For a long time, Mumtalakat was a 50% shareholder, with Saudi billionaire Mansour Ojjeh and former chairman Ron Dennis owning 25% each. When Dennis was forced out in 2017, his 25% stake was split between Mumtalakat and Ojjeh, making Mumtalakat the majority and controlling shareholder. Shaikh Mohamed sums up Mumtalakat's position: "Management's role is to manage the team. We are here to provide the resources and that is what I have kept pushing for - ie, tell me what you need. And we've supported them throughout this transition. We will see this through."

The Bahrainis' prime interest in McLaren is as a manufacturer of supercars. As long as the F1 team is performing respectably, and its financial drain does not become bigger than the Bahrainis are prepared to fund, their commitment is open-ended.

Going back to its roots

When Bruce McLaren founded his team it was more than just a F1 operation. In its early days, McLaren was as famous for its successes in Indycars and sportscars.

What was its past could well be its future, too. Brown, since he became chief executive, has been exploring the idea of McLaren racing in all three categories again. The first toe in the water was an assault on the 2017 Indianapolis 500 with Fernando Alonso, in a McLaren-branded car run by Andretti Autosport. Alonso's return to Indy this year is with a full-on McLaren operation, albeit with help from the British Carlin team.

It is unsaid for now, but McLaren has basically committed to going back to Indy with Alonso until he either wins it - and completes the unofficial 'triple crown' - or decides to give up trying. In time, this could expand into a full IndyCar championship entry, although it remains to be seen whether this will be as early as 2020.

Meanwhile, McLaren is keeping an eye on the World Endurance Championship and its shift to regulations focused on hypercars for 2020/21. The man who will oversee all this is de Ferran, whose role as sporting director encompasses all three of McLaren's racing activities.

Until he joined McLaren in 2018, de Ferran's F1 experience was limited to a couple of years as Honda's sporting director in the mid-2000s, and a couple of tests for Williams and Footwork in the early '90s. But he is widely respected, not just for his driving success - two Champ Car titles and an Indy 500 win - but also his intelligence, and original thinking. Until now, de Ferran has primarily been focused on F1. That will change now Seidl has started his role as F1 managing director.

Brown says: "When Andreas starts, he will be running the F1 team, and I have myself running the business and Gil helping and supporting me in all of our racing activities, but with more of a focus on what and if are we going to do in sportscars, what and if are we going to do in IndyCars."

The timeframe is not yet clear, but sooner or later McLaren will be racing in F1, IndyCars and sportscars. Just like it was at the very beginning.