The man who wants to lead McLaren's revival

The air is - as one expects within any McLaren hospitality unit - crisply conditioned despite the sultry 35C Sepang humidity raging outside.

The team has come to Malaysia off the back of a provisional - subsequently confirmed - two-three in Melbourne, so spirits are high. However caution reigns, for, if anyone fully understands the enormity of the task facing a team once synonymous with winning, it is 51-year-old Jonathan Neale, McLaren Racing's COO and acting CEO.

Before going on record we touch upon (former team principal) Martin Whitmarsh's (still undefined) career realignment, and predictably Jonathan bats curveballs across the boundary markers. Clearly the subject of the man who led McLaren's Formula 1 effort before stepping out/aside/down/away is off-limits.

However, the aftermath of the 2013 season, the first since 1980 that F1's Big Mac has not scored at least one podium finish, provides a fascinating comparison with 1995 for reasons manifesting themselves. Saliently, 2013 marked the first such season since Ron Dennis assumed control of the team in 1982.

It is no secret that Dennis, architect of all McLaren's serial successes in the early eighties, engineered his way back into McLaren Group control after a year away from the coal face as non-executive chairman, and Whitmarsh's fate was just an initial step in the rebuilding process. Much more has been done since, but clearly much more remains to be done.

Without mentioning Whitmarsh I point to the mid-nineties, when McLaren also lost its F1 way, winning not a grand prix as it focussed on building what is arguably the world's best-ever supercar, the F1, went racing (victoriously) at Le Mans and designed the (stillborn) Maverick land speed record challenger while living though upheaval caused by a succession of engine suppliers - in quick succession from Honda to Ford to Peugeot to Mercedes. Dennis was (very much) in charge then, I point out.

Last year McLaren launched its P1 supercar, went sportscar racing and geared up for the pending (2015) change from Mercedes to Honda on the F1 front. Is it not the case that McLaren Racing as an entity lost focus, as it has before?

Dennis is back at the helm, but there's still plenty to do © LAT

"I don't think it is quite the same," responds Neale after reflection. "On my wall I've got '50 Years of Race Wins' [a poster], and when you go through which drivers, which years, there are... moments when either we were in the transfer between engine suppliers or we just got something wrong, but there are always those moments where suddenly something goes wrong in a business.

"Formula 1 is incredibly unforgiving, distracting, so 2013 was actually a great opportunity for us... it was a very unfortunate year, not a year of racing that we enjoyed or felt that properly represented McLaren. It's caused us to go back to basics, back to the fundamentals."

At the launch of MP4-29 in January the accompanying media guide listed a raft of recent high-profile appointments - most significantly the recruitment of former Lotus team principal Eric Boullier as racing director, reporting to Neale in his acting CEO capacity - and while said plans recently got slightly derailed, McLaren Racing has clearly not taken defeat sitting down.

"Now we've got to start building logically for the future. And that requires a lot of effort and drive by everybody. Ron has certainly got the effort, the drive and the focus, and has made life quite simple for Eric and me in respect of taking away anything that would distract us."

Indeed, Neale clarifies that the GT racing programme is the responsibility of McLaren Automotive, adding with a smile: "Were Ron to catch us even looking at a GT magazine it would be a hanging offence...

"So there are a number of things we don't have to focus on - we can just focus on getting the job done in [F1] racing. I think that will be the hallmark of the new McLaren for the next two or three years."

Does Neale, though, believe he is the right man to lead McLaren Racing into the future? Having indicated his confidence in Neale, has Dennis given him a timeframe in which to "prove" himself, or what does the future hold?

"I'd love to be CEO of this business," Neale replies immediately with a broad grin. "I've made no bones about it. I actually think that Ron, Eric and I bring complimentary skills... Ron is a fearsome competitor, he's a racer at heart; Eric is a very experienced racer.

"I have a different set of experiences that I bring to the business. Between the three of us I think we can form the backbone of McLaren here and do very well. Eric and I have to demonstrate that during the summer."

Timetable?

"None, but whatever that is, it's short enough for Ron," he laughs. "No, there are no firm plans at the moment. We just said: 'Let's focus', because the real issue is, what we do with the organisation, the decisions we take, the senior management team's structure, [we] can afford to evolve over a period of time.

The McLaren P1 © LAT

"That isn't the reason we made wrong decisions last year, or that we may or may not be technically competent..."

The structure is simple: The racing buck stops with the CEO, who on paper has below him a COO responsible for the back office and operations, and Boullier carrying the can for track activities, with Sporting Director Sam Michael reporting to the Frenchman.

"Everything here at the circuit, the front face of the public-facing piece of the team is all Eric. Sam is the guy responsible for the operations and all the interface with the FIA, and reports to Eric.

"Eric and I co-chair the executive team. That means there's a hard link between Sam and Eric. But [Technical Director] Tim [Goss] is responsible to both of us. Because there are things we do at the factory and there are things we do here, clearly if there's an issue with the car or something's not working, or a legality issue or all the rest, then Eric needs to have full authority to be able to work technically into the organisation."

Then comes one of the profound sayings Neale, a physics honours graduate who reduces matter to its most basic state, is renowned for at McLaren: "Formula 1 fortunately has a very simple mission statement. No complicated mission and vision values in Formula 1: get out and win. So stewardship comes from both of us, because Eric will be out of the business 40 per cent of the time, on the road, it means I don't have to travel anything like that."

During our 30-minute noon session Neale regularly refers to the "McLaren way", often underscoring the phrase with "win". Under the team's previous leadership time and effort were expended on such as the contentious Resource Restriction Agreement and FOTA (Whitmarsh was the team's longest-serving chairman, with his McLaren step-down sealing the association's fate), and Neale is adamant that there won't be "any saving Formula 1 from itself or spearheading grander initiatives".

However, like his paddock peers Neale is concerned about the sport's overall governance.

"Governance is critical, because the investors, the business owners, are the ones taking the risk. I accept that the commercial rights holder is also taking commercial risk in this regard, but there are independent businesses who are taking risk as well.

"Therefore we shouldn't be making rules or regulations without understanding the commercial implications. It's not necessarily the same thing as imposing a budget cap. But I do think we have to be mindful of what it costs to go racing at the back of the grid, and stay within 107 per cent of the front of the grid."

By implication, then, he, like Dennis/Boullier, is no fan of cost/budget capping, and so it proves, with the bottom line being that the introduction of such controls as targeted by the FIA is impractical.

"I think we're starting to mix a few issues when it comes to cost control," says Neale, who gained an MBA during the 1990s and participated in the government cabinet office's prestigious Top Management Programme working with public and private sector colleagues before joining McLaren as Operations Director from BAE Systems in 2001.

Neale admits he wants to be McLaren's CEO © LAT

"We explained to the FIA and Jean Todt that we are very happy to be proactive and play a part in trying to get cost-consciousness into Formula 1. We didn't believe a cost cap was practical to implement."

Neale sees cost control as a function of the regulations. "If the powertrain were designed to be - pick a number, 10 million, five million pounds - or if we make a change," he hypothesises, "whether it's a sporting-regulation change or a technical one, if part of the obligation [of the FIA] is to come back and say 'What is the implication of the cost for the teams in doing this?' then we make decisions with our eyes wide open."

"[Capping] is a worthy ambition, but not practical to implement across different company structures, different cost zones, different currencies, different accounting standards. It becomes an expensive, bureaucratic nightmare, and if you're not careful you're going to defeat the very thing that you're trying to achieve."

That said, given McLaren's disappointing 2013 - and, one imagines, the team's recent performances - Neale is acutely aware that strong on-track performance is crucial to any team's commercial well-being, budget caps or not.

"Well-run businesses don't bet everything right to the last minute," he says. "You build capital reserves, you build your partnership base, you build the expectation of opportunity.

"Not to expect bad things, but you expect to manage the risk over a period of time. If you are mortgaged to the hilt - if you take out a personal mortgage, and 90 per cent of your income is going to that mortgage, then you're in trouble.

"So then how do you set your risk profile within the business? Which is, again, coming back to the importance of the investors, getting a say in how the business is run. Then you've got to structure yourself accordingly. You eat what you kill in Formula 1..."

On the question of Honda from 2015, Neale quickly refutes rumours that the power unit will be jointly developed.

"Honda are responsible for the power unit in total, including control electronics and the ERS system. We are doing some battery packaging for that, and cooling, because that's a core competence we have.

"From the clutch backwards, the gearbox, that's from us, but everything to do with the internal combustion engine, the ERS system, it's all them. We're just helping with a couple of specific items."

With the FIA insisting on standardised mounting points and (largely) common dimensions for F1's latest engines, McLaren could conceivably test Honda kit in its current chassis.

True, performance would not be optimum, but at least the power units would get track time. What are the chances given the regulations do not prohibit testing for 2015 developments during scheduled in-season tests?

"[The regulations] don't [ban testing]", he agrees. "I think we'll see where we get to during the summer. Obviously it's a very compressed time scale with Honda coming back, so we haven't made any firm decisions on that. We'll see what happens during the course of the summer."

McLaren and Honda will reunite in 2015 © LAT

In Malaysia, engines were the sport's Marmite. Is Neale pro or anti F1 2014-style?

"The FIA have taken bold decisions with these regulations. I think the return of Honda; the effort of Renault and Mercedes have [expended] to make these engines interesting; I think we're already seeing in the marketplace that hybrid technology is becoming more affordable in high-performance cars - there's a relevance there.

"That will fuel the interest. It's still chariot racing. It's still deeply personal between teams and drivers out there, so it has all of that."

As in Melbourne/Malaysia, recent grands prix have seen McLaren race without title sponsorship, and while sources suggest a deal is close, the fact is that pens have not pressed paper. Is Neale worried about the team's future?

"McLaren is a premium brand, it's an exciting race team, it's run by passionate people, it's been around for 50 years. So the next 50 years it's going to be just as competitive.

"We take a long-term view on these things and I firmly believe that something will emerge that's going to be good."

As we part he says: "I really want to be CEO of McLaren Racing. Make sure you stress that..."