McLaren Executive Director Zak Brown says the Formula 1 team is “a bit too slow and a bit too clunky”, in the wake of Eric Boullier’s departure as Racing Director.
McLaren emerged from its underwhelming three-year partnership with Honda in 2018 but has struggled for performance and holds only sixth spot in the Constructors’ Championship.
The operation confirmed on Wednesday that Boullier had tendered his resignation, with Andrea Stella promoted to Performance Director, and Gil de Ferran appointed to the newly-created role of Sporting Director.
Speaking to Sky Sports News after confirmation of the managerial reshuffle, Brown said: “[it's] the start of the process. We’re far from finished.
“I think we need to be a faster, more nimble organisation that communicates better, we’ve got great talent here, it’s just not gelling like it needs to gel.
“[And] I think the reason the car’s not performing on the track is we’re not performing well as a team.
“What I see is we’re too slow to react, I think we need to simplify things within the organisation.
“I think we need to operate like a race team, a much faster organisation, we’re a bit too slow, we’re a bit too clunky. And that’s not any one individual’s fault.
“I think we’ve got great people here, I know we’ve got great people here, it’s our ways of working that need to change.
“So really my job is to make sure I get all 7-800 people rowing in the same direction as quickly as possible, communicating well, because it’s those people that produce the race car.
“So we might have a race car problem but it’s actually how we built the race car that’s actually the real problem.”
Brown also conceded that McLaren’s regular high appraisal of its chassis during its spell with Honda was misjudged.
“We don’t have the best chassis [in 2018],” said Brown. “I think last year our chassis was good.
“I think we probably made a mistake with some of the statements that we made, some predictions, that’s always so dangerous in life.
“I think there are some things we would have done maybe a little bit differently a year or two ago, but they were said, we’ll learn from those, that’s what’s really important as an organisation is to learn by them and don’t make the same mistake twice.”
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