In the round-up: McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says the team is thriving because the team has a clearer focus and is less political.
What they say
Brown was asked how McLaren made such progress last season, when it scored its highest constructors’ championship finishing position for seven years.When I started there was a lot of chefs in the kitchen, a lot of stuff going on within the company, with shareholders and so there just was a lack of focus and direction of the leadership. And I wouldn’t put that down to one person it’s just [that] there wasn’t alignment.
If I look at the changes we’ve made, Andreas [Seidl] has done an excellent job. Obviously he didn’t build the car, that was done last year, but his focus that he’s brought to the team, leadership, he restructured to a much simpler organisation. We got James Key onboard, Andrea Stella has stepped up. So it’s not even just about the new people that have come in, it’s been those people stepping up and being empowered, having clear mandates on what is required out of them. That’s kind of the leadership direction.
And then [we] took the politics out of the team. I think when you have a lack of leadership and direction, then things can become political. So I think we’ve taken that out of the organisation and with that came a better-developed racecar.
Then enter two new exciting, very fast drivers that work really well together. All those things and many more that are just starting to kind of come together and create momentum. And I think this is, as all business is, it’s a momentum game. If you look at Mercedes, look at when Red Bull came in, we needed to kind of reverse this backwards momentum to forward momentum. And now we just need to build on it.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
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- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Motor racing worried expense will deter ‘the next Hamilton’ from F1 (The Guardian)
Derek Warwick: "If we are not careful, we are not going to get the next Lewis Hamilton because he is not going to be able to afford it unless his father or mother is a multimillionaire."
MindMaze to Partner with Haas F1 Team in 2020 (Haas)
"MindMaze, the global brain technology company specializing in neuro-inspired computing platforms, will partner with Haas F1 Team for the 2020 FIA Formula One World Championship in a relationship aimed at consolidating the technology platform developed by the San Francisco-headquartered firm to become the standard of safety in motorsport globally."
Penske: McLaughlin could get IndyCar race debut (Autosport)
"We've checked Scott's schedule to see if the COTA open test is a possibility or not, and yes, it is from that standpoint, but from the final decision standpoint, we still need to figure out that part of it."
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Comment of the day
Roy Nissany’s hiring underlines Williams’ plight, says @Qeki:
My first impression was ‘oh dear’. But Williams needs the financial backing from somewhere. Nissany isn’t fast enough to do proper tests but I think that’s not the main priority for Williams. They need the money and they need a lot of it. I really hope they will cope this and get their head in the game like McLaren. They ditched Honda but I don’t know what Williams should do to be back on track.
@Qeki
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On this day in F1
15 years ago today the final BAR F1 car was launched at the Circuit de Catalunya. Over the next five years the team changed names three times: Honda took over in 2006 but withdrew after three seasons after which the team became Brawn, then it was bought by Mercedes.
Andy (@andycz)
16th January 2020, 0:16
Wow I didn’t know Bernoldi was testdriver for BAR that year!
Cristiano Ferreira
16th January 2020, 2:30
I still wonder what last year’s chassis was capable of if it was driven by Fernando Alonso.
Well i doubt it could have challenged the RBR one but still one can wonder how many points he could have scored in comparison with the 2 other drivers.
RB13
16th January 2020, 9:57
My guess is 2 podiums and Lando at roughly 40% of his points tally.
antony obrien
16th January 2020, 10:22
My guess is he would have called it GP2 in the races it was weak at thereby undermining hardworking staff who put everything in with little reward. Thus creating a negative downward spiral where we applaud Alonso for dragging a dog to 9th whilst his hapless team mate has any confidence shredded till he cant even drive a Formula E and the team subsconsciously down tools and the engine supplier wants out. That’s how I think he would’ve done.
Islander
16th January 2020, 10:48
.. not to mention draining their budget with a top salary negotiated by Flavio!
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
16th January 2020, 11:24
Jeez man.
Balue (@balue)
16th January 2020, 11:14
Either of them. And soundly outqualified too.
He would still be rated poorly though. At least the Sainz hype-train would have been stopped in its tracks.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
16th January 2020, 2:32
Above all else Zak made McLaren likeable. The mclaren amazon doc was fascinating, what a disfunctional mess on display, and that was the tip of the iceberg.
Phylyp (@phylyp)
16th January 2020, 4:08
@peartree – indeed, I think that was among their bigger achievements. He made a convert out of me, if no one else :)
I think they did a very smart move by also moving the leadership a little back from the press, and increasing the social media presence of their drivers, to convey an impression of youthfulness and energy, instead of stodgy bureaucracy.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
16th January 2020, 21:04
@phylyp a convert out of me too. @3dom Once Zak got more powers things changed. Zaks McLaren made rookie mistakes in Indy but who else would come forward, take responsability and detail some of their mistakes? Aproachable and transparent, not the bureaucracy of old, the old McLaren would find a way to blame someone and excuse the blame.
Balue (@balue)
16th January 2020, 11:16
But he took too long about it.
antony obrien
16th January 2020, 12:04
WHAT? He made them likeable ergo they performed better.
Dom (@3dom)
16th January 2020, 13:42
I’ll have to try check this documentary @peartree coz, while I appreciate what some of the other comments point out, that the social media presence has given McLaren a more youthful image, I still cringe when I hear Zac Brown speak from listening to his regular political answers during the McLaren Honda period. He still just sounds like a politician to me, I’m intrigued by this potential other side to him.
NS Biker (@rekibsn)
16th January 2020, 4:19
See …. the freddo’s worked.
Jon Bee
16th January 2020, 7:10
The Matrix management system comes from aircraft manufacturing, where it is ideal for a business where the rules don’t change very often and plans are made years in advance of production. F1 is fast moving, changes and decisions are required in days. Whitmarsh turned McLaren into a quagmire of committees, the ultimate corporate mess, guaranteed to create friction politics. Ron Dennis took his eye off the ball when he put his efforts into road car production. I think he was too old to sort out the problems after he sacked Whitmarsh and took over the reins again.
I imagine Brown has returned McLaren to basics and hopefully has dumped the fossilised management non-achievers. I also believe he needed to remove Alonso from the team, especially if he wants a politics free company. Does he need to answer for McLaren dropping Honda, just when the breakthrough was coming? It must hurt McLaren every time RB wins a race, knowing they’d almost been there themselves.
There’s only one potential issue left, has he stopped the ridiculous system of having 2 separate groups designing alternate race cars? How many years did McLaren end the season with the best car and start the next with a camel?
loki_0420 (@loki0420)
16th January 2020, 9:18
It’s been a long time since different groups designed cars. At least since 2010 when Fry left to Ferrari i believe.
Jon Bee
16th January 2020, 9:44
In that case, what was the excuse for the 2012 car?
F1oSaurus (@)
16th January 2020, 19:16
What was wrong with the design of the 2012 car? Hamilton won plenty races with it. Or do you mean all the cases where Hamilton was in the lead and the car failed? Or the pit crew failed? Or that he was crashed into by Grosjean, Hulkenberg or Rosberg?
Not sure if those situations are caused by the car design so much. Gear box failures happen.
harold wilson
17th January 2020, 11:14
Does he need to answer for McLaren dropping Honda, just when the breakthrough was coming? It must hurt McLaren every time RB wins a race, knowing they’d almost been there themselves.
Don’t think so. Mclaren had to terminate their agreement with Honda no matter what. That team would not have survived another season with Honnda considering what the previous 2 years had been. And besides, there is no gurantee that Mclaren would have had a car design as efficient as Red Bull. In fact, the likelyhood is that they would not have.
Qeki (@qeki)
16th January 2020, 7:26
Thanks for the cotd Keith!
Jere (@jerejj)
16th January 2020, 8:25
And that has worked well.
BTW, I still quite like the BAR-Honda 007-livery this many years later.
antony obrien
16th January 2020, 10:26
Yes me too. It has a coherence a lot of the current cro have. It helped it was cigarettes, they had marketing departments that had to be very imaginative with the restrictions placed on advertising. Also the huge marketing budgets they could throw at it. Its too easy now to make a design complex rather than memorable
Duncan Snowden
16th January 2020, 12:09
It also helped that the Lucky Strike and Honda racing colours are basically the same. BAR always looked more like a Honda works team in those days than it did when it was the Honda works team.
Adam (@rocketpanda)
16th January 2020, 10:27
Have to admit I never liked McLaren in the past but this was the first year I really started to appreciate them. A lot of the politics and corporate arrogance that they seemed to carry for a long time wasn’t there – they seemed fun, energised. I’d count myself a fan now.
All these years later I still think that BAR-Honda is an awesome looking car. When I first started watching F1, BAR-Honda was my team – not sure why I picked it but it was them I chose to support. Still love it now.
Matt (@hollidog)
16th January 2020, 14:05
I never liked BAR but I sure enjoyed smoking Luckies