Big Changes At McLaren

     




It hasn't taken long for McLaren long to shake things up after their brutal start to the 2023 season. On Thursday we learned that McLaren and technical director James Key are parting ways.

    This doesn't seem like too much of a surprise, being as we have seen massive technical issues with the technical development of the McLaren. There was a distinct downplaying of expectations during the care reveal and the first two races have confirmed how far behind the team has been on their car development. These problems had fallen squarely on James Key's shoulders and it was only a matter of time before there was a change within the team.

    Not sure how much of an impact his will have of the team this season. I doubt anything they do will catapult them into contending for points every race, but maybe getting both cars to perform consistently throughout every weekend with no avoidable problems compounding the teams performance issues. I guess one good thing for whoever comes in to try and turn this around is it can't get much worse then where they are currently. 



    One thing is for sure, they are going to be tackling the technical team from a completely different angle than before. Instead of having one director overseeing the entire operation, there will be 3 directors in charge, looking after different aspects.

The new Techinal director in the aerodynamics division was given to Peter Prodromou. He is an F1 lifer, having 32 years of experience in F1. David Sanchez will be coming on board at the beginning of 2024 and he will the technical director of Car Concept and Performance. All of these different functions in the team are important, but with Performance in your job title, you better hope the car starts turning heads soon. And finally, Neil Houdley will e taking over the Engineering and Design department.

    Time will tell if these changes make any difference. Perhaps taking all the weight off of one guy for the whole operation will make sense in the long run. Having 3 different directors for 3 different divisions will hopefully lead to each part perfecting what is asked of them and culminating in a competitive car. Or, maybe, the adding more cooks into the kitchen may lead to more uncertainty if the 3 directors can not see eye to eye in one or multiple things related to the car.

    F1 doesn't have a race this weekend, but they will be in Australia next week. It will be interesting to see if there are any immediate changes we can see with the McLaren, and also, if those changes are a good or bad thing.

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