The bold reset helping McLaren reverse its fortunes

After the frustrations of its Honda years, and the turmoil of last year, McLaren has emerged from the shadows as one of the surprises of the 2019 Formula 1 season.

It is currently sitting pretty as the 'best of the rest' outfit behind the big three. It has banished much of the negativity that surrounded it over recent years and now has an aura of a team that is going places. It even seems to be having a laugh and enjoying itself along the way.

Central to that leap forward has been having a better car. The flaws of last year's MCL33 proved incurable during the campaign, which led to the pain of McLaren drifting down the order to end up with only the ninth-quickest car by the end of 2018.

In modern F1, a good car is no longer the result of one man's efforts. It is instead the manifestation of the qualities of several hundreds of people working together at a factory, and it is in this area that McLaren has transformed itself over the past 18 months.

That work began last year when performance director Andrea Stella and (now former) engineering director Pat Fry overhauled the engineering outlook at the team. They effectively brought in a back-to-basics approach of making sure McLaren understood everything about its car.

Stella explains: "We needed to adjust our processes because the complexity of modern engineering [with an F1 car] requires very close monitoring, a daily understanding, so from today to tomorrow, have we understood 100%? If yes, OK, we move on. Otherwise we stop, and we wait until we understand."

It was an approach that meant McLaren endured some short-term pain spending time getting to the bottom of the issues it faced last year - which meant progress appeared slow from the outside. It was not a case of throwing updates on to try to find lap time; sometimes a leap forward in understanding would not even be noticed by anyone outside the team.

"It was very important to get the information we needed to progress," adds Stella. "Especially after Spain [in 2018], there had been a lot of expectations with the new upgrades but these expectation were somehow let down by what was happening on track.

"We got the improvement of aero efficiency that we were expecting, but other people were progressing more rapidly than us, having a better baseline to start with.

"So there was a lot of investigations going on, which [did] not necessarily produce upgrades that we could keep on the car.

"I remember we went to some places with parts that could only go up to 250km/h [155mph], just because they were investigation parts. But I think they helped us realise that we needed to make changes that were quite fundamental."

That work paid off in helping produce a 2019 design that is much improved compared to its predecessor, and helped lay solid foundations before the arrival of team boss Andreas Seidl and technical director James Key in the spring. Both had to wait until gardening leave periods from their former employers had run out.

"It's not like there's something glaring at you and it has a big answer. It's lots of subtleties" James Key

Key in particular is full of praise for the efforts of Stella and Fry in helping the team achieve the strong start to 2019 it needed, and allowing him to come in and focus on improving the car in the future rather than having to put out any major fires.

"Neither Andreas nor I can claim any credit," says Key. "The resurgence of McLaren compared to last year, that was very much a team effort led by Pat and Andrea. It was a brave reset after the season that they had, so full credit to the team.

"We have already got a better direction over the past year and that has played out a positive story, but there is still a huge amount to do and a long way to go. We still have a second and a half to the guys at the front so it is hardly job done. There is a lot more to do.

"But the good news is it is there for all of us to take, and the other positive thing I have found is the people are ready for that. They want to make progress to get back on track and try to see where we can get to."

Having spent some time on board now, Key knows there is no magic bullet for making the gains needed to close in on the front of the grid. It is going to be a question of marginal gains adding up to make a big difference.

"One and a half seconds of downforce is a huge number, and there is no way that anyone has got that much more downforce compared to us in the midfield. So there are a lot of subtleties in there," he adds.

"You only have to look at the front of the floor of these cars now to know where the big areas of development lie, it was the same with the front wing to a certain extent and the outboard. All of these areas are super sensitive and play their role, but it is all subtleties.

"I was empowered and trusted, and this is what I try to do with my people. Plus support them when things go wrong, because you need to encourage people to take risks" Andreas Seidl

"It is not like there is something glaring at you and it has got a big answer. It is lots of subtleties all the way down, which begin to modify that wheel wake or stabilise the diffuser or whatever the issue of the day is. And it does play a role mostly at low speed.

"To be honest, if you look at the GPS plots, low and medium is where the majority of the performance of the top teams is."

As well as the new engineering mindset paying off, it is clear that new management philosophies laid down by Seidl have had an impact too.

From the outside, Seidl's qualities are similar to those of Mercedes boss Toto Wolff. The pair are both clear about the importance of empowering staff, not allowing politics to infect a team, making sure that everyone knows their role and value, avoiding micromanaging and also underlining the importance of fun.

"What I like is dialling into new organisations, which I did now several times, and trying to convince people that we can achieve something together," explains Seidl. "For me, the key is [to] understand success in motorsport it is a big team effort.

"This means you need to make sure that, first of all, you find the right person for every single position, and that these people feel valued and understand how important their daily job is and what their contribution is towards the overall success of the project.

"For me it is important now that I have my key players in place, they have the chance also to work out their vision of their departments for the future with the same goal: to make sure that everyone inside the team has his place, feels valued and feels respected.

"Then, what I was used to since the beginning of my career was I always had bosses that gave me full support and at the same time full freedom, and this is where I could develop as a person, as an employee. I have always had a possibility to show what I am able to do, and this is why I was able to perform.

"I was empowered and trusted, and this is what I try to do with my people - empower them, make sure that they feel the trust. Plus support them when things go wrong, because you need to encourage people to take risks, especially in this business, and especially in our situation where we need to catch up, you need to also allow that mistakes might happen.

"Of course you want to try to avoid making mistakes, or that you don't do it twice, but at the same time you need to have this culture where [you accept] it is possible. This is sport and this is what I try with my people, that they have the freedom and protection from my side if things go wrong because stuff will go wrong."

McLaren's progress prompted Wolff earlier this year to remark about the 'Seidl effect' already beginning to show on track. It's a comment that Seidl himself is both flattered by and cautious about.

"I have a good relationship with Toto and obviously Toto is the reference in this sport at the moment," he said. "What he has put up is impressive and we would be stupid not to analyse it and what Toto is doing.

"But when any team boss in this paddock is commenting, you have to be careful because if Toto puts out tomorrow that the key to success is he serves Weiner Schnitzel at lunch time on Sunday to his team, at least half of the paddock will start to analyse that and waste energy working out if that can really be and should we do that?

"But that is also part of the fun of F1, this paranoia about, did we miss something? Is anyone doing something different, and why, and is that something we should copy? Which is a lot of fun doing that.

"The thing is now we have to define the new people on board with the long-term people and the people who have seen other organisations in the past, define our new McLaren way and then how we want to approach the next years."

McLaren has made a big jump in just 12 months. There is a long journey ahead still to get back to the front, but it's one that everyone in Woking is now ready for and focused on finishing.