Restructure of Mclaren Managment...

[Deleted member 651465]

After McLaren scored its maiden grand prix victory in 1968, the team added a trio of wins before concentrating on winning the CanAm sports car series. It did so in dominant style, the death of the team’s founder Bruce McLaren in 1970 notwithstanding. However, its F1 record suffered, and only after CanAm collapsed in 1973 did McLaren again focus on winning in F1 – and promptly won the 1974 title.

Thereafter McLaren diversified into Indianapolis, winning the hallowed 500 in 1974/6. Although James Hunt took the 1976 title, Niki Lauda’s fiery Nürburgring crash undoubtedly swung matters his way. Thereafter, as McLaren embraced the 500, so F1 results suffered, so much so that Marlboro massaged a merger of McLaren with Ron Dennis’s Project 4 operation.

Numerous further examples of lost focus abound in McLaren’s history: During the early nineties McLaren’s attention turned to its sublime F1 road car, which went into limited production for three years from 1993, also winning Le Mans in 1995. The company simultaneously dabbled with an ultimately aborted land speed record project. Between 1994 and 1996 McLaren failed to win a grand prix, scoring but six third places.

In 1997 McLaren ceased all peripheral activities, and immediately returned to its winning ways, scoring titles in 1998-9. Then, though, attention turned to building the Mercedes SLR-McLaren with its then-engine partner and shareholder, and immediately the team was overshadowed by Ferrari and Renault. Once production of the sports car ceased, the 2008 title followed in dramatic style.

In 2010 McLaren announced plans for a return to sports car manufacturing, with the MP4-12C launched as a low-volume Ferrari/Porsche challenger in late 2011. McLaren won its last grand prix the following season.

McLaren, for all its strengths, is obviously unable to multi-task. Can the company build title-winning F1 cars? Emphatically. Le Mans winners? Of course. CanAm and Indianapolis winners? No doubt. Produce road cars able to consistently challenge Ferrari and Porsche? Absolutely.

Can McLaren, though, multi-task? Obviously not, as the team’s history relates. The lesson is clear: until McLaren once again focuses on F1 it is unlikely to return to its previous winning ways…

Forget binning Eric, they need to focus on F1 before the bank balance goes too far in the wrong direction and they never recover.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

I don't see the sacking of Boullier making much of a difference when there are so many issues with the car.

This. The whole team is a mess.

Forget binning Eric, they need to focus on F1 before the bank balance goes too far in the wrong direction and they never recover.

Maybe. They have massive investment from the Middle East though and people still love their cars.

 

[dowie]

Forget binning Eric, they need to focus on F1 before the bank balance goes too far in the wrong direction and they never recover.

I'm pretty sure their F1 team is focused on F1. I'm not sure that article is really applicable tbh.. as people have pointed out earlier in the thread the sports car manufacturing is separate to the F1 team. They're also got a consultancy arm, I know someone who works there - the fact he might be working on some project in healthcare or the oil industry or air traffic control or whatever has little to do with the F1 team and their ability to utilise their resources, he's not even based in the same location as them.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I'm pretty sure their F1 team is focused on F1. I'm not sure that article is really applicable tbh.. as people have pointed out earlier in the thread the sports car manufacturing is separate to the F1 team. They're also got a consultancy arm, I know someone who works there - the fact he might be working on some project in healthcare or the oil industry or air traffic control or whatever has little to do with the F1 team and their ability to utilise their resources, he's not even based in the same location as them.

Seems pretty apppicable to me. Their F1 success seems to be inverse to all the other business focus.

 

[dowie]

Seems pretty apppicable to me. Their F1 success seems to be inverse to all the other business focus.

Only really applicable if you take a superficial look, spot some coincidence and then ignore the fact that the part of the group making sports cars is a separate company to the F1 part ergo the coincidence mentioned is exactly that.

 

[MissChief]

This. The whole team is a mess.



Maybe. They have massive investment from the Middle East though and people still love their cars.

Indeed. The F1 team is still partially owned by Mansour Ojjeh, a Billionaire by all accounts, and the Bahraini Sovereign Wealth fund Mumtalakat who aren't short of a bob or two with an estimated $11 Billion warchest.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Only really applicable if you take a superficial look, spot some coincidence and then ignore the fact that the part of the group making sports cars is a separate company to the F1 part ergo the coincidence mentioned is exactly that.

Hardly ignoring the fact though is it? The more successful the road cars, the less impressive the F1 team. Whatever is going on at McLaren is detracting from their primary focus... winning races.

To say it isn’t is ignoring the facts provided tbh.

 

[dowie]

Hardly ignoring the fact though is it? The more successful the road cars, the less impressive the F1 team. Whatever is going on at McLaren is detracting from their primary focus... winning races.

To say it isn’t is ignoring the facts provided tbh.

It ignores the structure of the group, there is no mention of it in the article. It has highlighted what appears to be a coincidence, it hasn't demonstrated any actual link/reason for it other than mentioning: "look when X happened Y also happened" in order to make people think "oh McLaren need to focus more on F1" when actually the F1 team does exactly that and the fact there are some other employees at another company within the group producing supercars using the McLaren name doesn't seem to have much relation.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

It ignores the structure of the group, there is no mention of it in the article. It has highlighted what appears to be a coincidence, it hasn't demonstrated any actual link/reason for it other than mentioning: "look when X happened Y also happened" in order to make people think "oh McLaren need to focus more on F1" when actually the F1 team does exactly that and the fact there are some other employees at another company within the group producing supercars using the McLaren name doesn't seem to have much relation.

I’m not disputing that the men on the ground aren’t focussed, but clearly the upper levels of management can’t seem to multitask. Fact.

 

[dowie]

I’m not disputing that the men on the ground aren’t focussed, but clearly the upper levels of management can’t seem to multitask. Fact.

Why? It doesn't demonstrate that either - all it has done is highlight what could easily be a coincidence. It provides no arguments re: that, it just highlights that X happened at the same time as we saw Y and then jumps to a conclusion.

 

[JRS]

Seems pretty apppicable to me. Their F1 success seems to be inverse to all the other business focus.

Correlation doesn't always go hand-in-hand with causation

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Why? It doesn't demonstrate that either - all it has done is highlight what could easily be a coincidence. It provides no arguments re: that, it just highlights that X happened at the same time as we saw Y and then jumps to a conclusion.

Bit of a coincidence though.

I’d also hardly call one of the best F1 journalists “jumping to conclusion” but there we go

 

[The_Abyss]

Looks like McLaren have been selling off F1 cars to pay bills.

https://www.pitpass.com/62270/McLaren-selling-off-the-family-silver

This is terrible news for their social media team. Their available interesting content has probably just reduced by 90%, with far fewer cars to wheel out to the front of the MTC every morning.

 

[Flibster]

Lets hope before they sell them all off, they take more photos of Unit2. It's a magical cave.

http://skiddmark.com/2011/07/unit-2-where-mclarens-racing-cars-go-to-retire/

 

[GravyMonster]

This is terrible news for their social media team. Their available interesting content has probably just reduced by 90%, with far fewer cars to wheel out to the front of the MTC every morning.

lol I thought the same. Their Instagram page is 80% pics of historical cars in their HQ, 5% driver photos and 15% race weekend shots trying to gloss over poor results

 

[deuse]

Well at least Andrea Stella and Gil de Ferran have an excuse for this years car.
But what about when next years car is also a dog(which it will be)?

I think Alonso has had a say in this.

 

[this_is_gav]

I doubt Stella and de Ferran will have any meaningful effect. It seems they're replacing Boullier's trackside part of the job of overseeing the race-weekend, coaching and guiding the young drivers and observe the engineers, apparently nothing to do with the technical side at the factory, which is where the real issues lie.

 

[MissChief]

I doubt Stella and de Ferran will have any meaningful effect. It seems they're replacing Boullier's trackside part of the job of overseeing the race-weekend, coaching and guiding the young drivers and observe the engineers, apparently nothing to do with the technical side at the factory, which is where the real issues lie.

I've heard that there's a lot of infighting at McLaren with no clear, team wide direction. Also there's little encouragement of coming up with any innovative ideas and most staff as just told to do their job.

 

[The_Abyss]

Weren't staff told to take any bright ideas they had for aero and carve them into bits of wood to bring to work?

 

[cuke2u]

I very much doubt it for the actual racing car, perhaps a design brainstorming exercise. But what do we know, we are only armchair experts and for all we know it could be the case that Eric has got out of what he sees is a team giving him a bad name.