Simon Roberts, McLaren Racing’s COO will be the head of production, engineering and logistics and Andrea Stella will be appointed as the performance director, responsible for trackside operations.
McLaren often derided power unit partners Honda (often publicly thanks to Fernando Alonso) while talking up the effectiveness of their car’s chassis, clamining it to be one of the best in F1. However, with the switch to Renault power, identical to what Red Bull Racing uses, the team is still a long way behind Red Bull Racing while former partners Honda have steadily improved thanks to a better working relationship with Toro Rosso and will become a supplier to Red Bull as well next year.
Despite an encouraging start to the season that saw both Alonso and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne finish in the points in three of the first five races, the pair have collectively only scored four points in the last four races.
THE ALONSO EFFECT
De Ferran’s appointment is significant as he coached Alonso during the Spaniard’s Indy 500 campaign last year when he was in contention for victory before having to retire due to an engine failure. De Ferran has continued to remain close to Alonso and also Zak Brown.
His promotion within the team while Boullier leaves signals the team structuring itself more around Alonso and Brown while Boullier had been appointed to the team while Ron Dennis was still the CEO of the McLaren Group of companies. He was removed from his management roles in 2016 after relations worsened with the team’s two major shareholders Mansour Ojjeh and Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the reigning king of Bahrain.
Source: AutoX