It has not been the best start of the season for the Woking based outfit. The team have not scored any points this season. But McLaren say that their new team structure allows them to bring updates much quicker to the car and more of the updates that they bring out work on the car.
“There’s been a huge change in overall culture and philosophy, said McLaren Racing Director, Eric Boullier. ” At every level of the company, there is clear leadership. We agree the direction we want to pursue, and we bring people with us.”
“The attitude has changed from ‘telling’ people, to ‘asking’ people; we’ve integrated people, and we share opinions and ideas.”
“The main outcome of that new approach is that people now have a sense of ownership in the car. And they’re more motivated and interested as a result. To give you an example, I guess about 50 per cent of the upgrades we brought to the track last year didn’t completely work; this year, we’ve brought that down to about five or 10 per cent.”
Chief Engineer Peter Prodromou joined McLaren from Red Bull at the end of the 2014 season. His influence in the 2015 car can be seen all around the MP4-30. He’s introduced a new aerodynamic concept to the car which he says has changed the teams heading in the future.
“Over the last couple of seasons, the team slightly lost its way aerodynamically. It became obvious that if we’d carried on with the previous concept, there’d only be so much we could achieve,” commented Prodromou.
So we’ve begun to establish a new aerodynamic concept, and a different way of working, too. That new concept has majorly shaped where the team’s heading in the future.”
This new structure in the team has enabled them to bring updates to the track much quicker as well.
“We’re much more structured in the way we bring new parts to the track. The rate of progress is much faster, so we don’t need to build as many new components, because we know they’ll be updated in just a few races’ time. That speeds up the whole process,” added McLaren’s Director of Engineering, Matt Morris.
Despite the difficult start, McLaren say that they will continue their development on the MP4-30 till the final race of the season. Next years McLaren will be an evolution of this years car according to Prodromou. “So we need to keep developing it right until the final race.”
Photo Credit: McLaren Honda Formula 1 Team
