Mclaren Shakeup

[ganesh]

Eric Boullier out as McLaren reshuffle leadership

It is high time. IMO it is time to get rid of FA also. I hope they bring back Ron Dennis.

[buh_buh]

FA as in Fernando Alonso? He's the only guy at Mclaren that's actually producing results

[ganesh]

FA as in Fernando Alonso? He's the only guy at Mclaren that's actually producing results

Yes FA for Alonso. Sure he is producing results. He is one of the reasons why they are at this point as well. He whined and complained and kicked Honda out, is that the right decision ? Last year we all heard how good their chassis are and look where they are right now?
His whining has to stop. Why pay him so much when you are going no where? It is time to go back to the grass roots. Promote Lando Norris. It is time to give that guy a drive.

[killramos]

Yes firing Honda was a good decision.

And he is paid what he is because he is the only thing left at the team that attracts sponsorship. Not rocket science.

Remember caterham? That’s what grass roots looks like.

[ganesh]

Yes firing Honda was a good decision.

And he is paid what he is because he is the only thing left at the team that attracts sponsorship. Not rocket science.

Remember caterham? That’s what grass roots looks like.

I beg to differ. Norris will attract a lot of British sponsors. They give him a seat or he is walking free in October. There are plenty enough teams which are willing to give this guy a seat.
It is not like FA has bought in a lot of sponsors. They are still without a title sponsor.
It is so sad to see a team with lot of history struggling like this because of the people who are running it. No idea what they see in Zak Brown

[flipstah]

FA as in Fernando Alonso? He's the only guy at Mclaren that's actually producing results

QFT. It's not a racer issue when the dude can win other championships on a whim,

"Sure I'll do LeMans"

https://cdn-2.motorsport.com/images/amp/2Gm9WAz6/s6/lemans-24-hours-of-le-mans-2018-overall-podium-winner-fernando-alonso-toyota-gazoo-racing-8576166.jpg

[That.Guy.S30]

Firing Fernando will be the death of McLaren. Fire Stoffel let Norris take his seat.

There's a reason why Toyota is rigging the WEC for Alonso to win...

Edit: have you watched the last 3 seasons of f1? Booting Honda was the right thing to do. He's had more DNF in those 3 years than his entire F1 career.

[Buster]

Do you think this will impact the street car side of the business? I've been looking into one, but I'd rather not get involved if the company's racing division starts to be a drag on the consumer side. It's not a big company.

[ganesh]

Firing Fernando will be the death of McLaren. Fire Stoffel let Norris take his seat.

There's a reason why Toyota is rigging the WEC for Alonso to win...

Why do you think none of the top teams don't want to touch FA?

[killramos]

Because those teams don’t need him.

[ganesh]

Because those teams don’t need him.
Nico Rosberg has said that he thinks Fernando Alonso's winning days in Formula 1 are over.

In Montreal, Spaniard Alonso passed the ultra-rare 300 grand prix mark, but next weekend he will tackle Le Mans and for 2019 he is linked with Indycar.

Rosberg, the 2016 world champion, said that almost everybody wishes for more success in Formula 1 for the two-time world champion.

"We all want to see that, but nobody wants him because of his political games within the team," the German is quoted as saying by Sky Italia.

Rosberg said that he is not sure how Alonso can stay motivated to remain in F1 with McLaren.

"I don't know how he does it, I really don't. He knows he's one of the best, but he cannot qualify 14th. It's incredible," the former Mercedes driver said.

Alonso sits seventh in the driver rankings following the Canadian Grand Prix

https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/formula-1/red-bull/news/rosberg-no-top-team-wants-alonso_328052.html

[killramos]

90% of the issues in that article are explained away by Honda’s garbage engines :rofl:

Regardless, Alonso doesn’t need to win to draw press. He is doing exactly what he needs to do for McLaren.

[Team_Mclaren]

Yes FA for Alonso. Sure he is producing results. He is one of the reasons why they are at this point as well. He whined and complained and kicked Honda out, is that the right decision ? Last year we all heard how good their chassis are and look where they are right now?
His whining has to stop. Why pay him so much when you are going no where? It is time to go back to the grass roots. Promote Lando Norris. It is time to give that guy a drive.

I suggest that you watch Grand Prix Drivers on Amazon Prime. It really gives you an idea that Mclaren had no choice but to drop Honda. It wasn't just Alonso's doing.

As for Norris, yes he is good, but he wont attach a penny of sponsorship money. You're out to lunch.

[ganesh]

I suggest that you watch Grand Prix Drivers on Amazon Prime. It really gives you an idea that Mclaren had no choice but to drop Honda. It wasn't just Alonso's doing.

As for Norris, yes he is good, but he wont attach a penny of sponsorship money. You're out to lunch.
Thanks I have watched the Grad Prix Drive. There are many reasons why the partnership didn't work. From what I read and heard one of the reason is FA. I guess all other reports are wrong.
As for Norris I assume that you know his family background correct?

[revelations]

That Grand Prix clip of Honda showing up with their new engine at the workshop, and it wouldn't even fucking start in perfect lab conditions... was just sad and I knew immediately which way the rest of the show/season was going to go. It almost seemed to be a joke, like Honda was intentionally trying to fuck things up .... or McLaren gave Honda impossible tasks for impossible times.

Its not typical for the Japanese to fuck up like that, over and over. Engineers have committed honorary suicide for less.

Rumours for 2019 include Kimi at Mclaren again to finish up his career with his younger, successful team... but personally I think Kimi will retire.

[tonytiger55]

Interesting.. Was Boullier the fall guy..?:dunno:

I don't think getting rid of Alonso would help. Sure his podium winning days are over. But while there is reform you need stability and exprience. Im sure his many years in F1 will help in giving feed back to how the car handles, feels etc. If the car is shit you sometimes need a good driver to get it through the race. Alonso has done that many a time.


There were some interesting comments on reddit that gave another perspective.


I finished reading Adrian Newey's book "How to build a race car" this weekend and there was a ton of great insight in it about the current McLaren situation.
He describes an incident in which he and Whitmarsh were called to Ron's house in the south of France and given the chance to take the reins of the business, presumably so Ron could start moving towards retirement. Whitmarsh signed up no question but Newey wasn't interested which permanently damaged his relationship with Ron. Ron couldn't fathom that someone would put their own interests before loyalty to him and the business.
Newey proposed that this incident was what caused Ron and Whitmarsh to introduce the matrix style corporate management structure which persists today. Which each department run by their own voting managers dubbed 'mullahs' that could veto things that had nothing to do with their skill set. Adrian frequently found himself overruled on design decisions by the likes of marketing people etc, much to his frustration and is the primary reason he took up the offer to join Red Bull.
He straight up blamed this system for the debacle with the 2004/2005 cars design and poor implementation and the massive flip flopping between designs from '11-'13 when McLaren abandoned a chassis that was one of the best in the field in exchange for a terrible experimental one and then one that just stole ideas from other cars on the grid. But yet Whitmarsh outright refused to admit the mistake and revert to using the previous years car throughout the campaign, which ultimately led to his being fired by Ron.
In the book Adrian talks about his time at McLaren including the move to the Woking facility which he described as "grey, everything was grey. That was Ron's favorite color" and complained about how dull and muted everything was, how they were weren't allowed pictures or personal effects in their workspace and couldn't even bring coffee or drinks to their desks. How Ron would apparently throw a fit every time someone would change something, which included when Adrian had his office painted a bright color. Or that to enter the building you had to walk through this underground corridor, and that one time he tried to sneak in via the park outside he got caught on CCTV and was told not to do it again. like wtf!?
All in all describing a stuffy workplace that didn't inspire originality or creativity in its staff, with too much management all being run by an extremely anal retentive micro-manager in the form of Ron Dennis. A man that had so much previous success (in the 80's) that everyone thought could do no wrong.

[Team_Mclaren]

Thanks I have watched the Grad Prix Drive. There are many reasons why the partnership didn't work. From what I read and heard one of the reason is FA. I guess all other reports are wrong.
As for Norris I assume that you know his family background correct?

I dont know why you would pin it on FA on Mclaren's failure since as far back as 2010. Of course he has pushed for a Honda divorce, any decent driver would.

you think Norris' 200 mill means anything in the F1 world? FA is worth much more than that.

[ganesh]

I dont know why you would pin it on FA on Mclaren's failure since as far back as 2010. Of course he has pushed for a Honda divorce, any decent driver would.

you think Norris' 200 mill means anything in the F1 world? FA is worth much more than that.

I am not talking about the 200 mil, it is about the connections and the fact that he is a Brit driving for a British team will bring more sponsor's. That's my logic. Maybe I am wrong.
The fact is as you pointed out the trouble for Mclaren started way back. It started because they wanted to build the road cars which led to Merc stop supplying engines to them. That was the tip of the iceberg. So to blame Honda for the trouble is IMO unnecessary.

[OTown]

I would think firing FA would be a massive error. Hes not the one at fault here, and his talent is pretty well known. Vandoorne on the other hand has been pretty mediocre.

[redline]

If they fired FA for LN then Mclearn can do a full Williams... right to the back of the grid permanently.

If FA had a car, he could win...

McLean’s issues go a lot farther back then a bad Honda engine... they were on downward slide while they still had Benz engines. They have had aero/chassis issues for many years.

Ron will never be back

[npham]

it is about the connections and the fact that he is a Brit driving for a British team will bring more sponsor's. That's my logic. Maybe I am wrong.

Are you British? Seems like a very short sighted way of thinking when ideally you want to be attracting global companies with big bank rolls.

The reason Alonso has been so outspoken about the Honda engines is that he's the voice for all those mechanics and engineers who wanted to say Honda is shit, but couldn't. Management also could not publicly trash Honda as well, so he had to step up and be the voice for all those who didn't have one. Once Alonso leaves, there's going to be very a long road ahead of them. They will end up with two junior(albeit very skilled ones) who don't know how to develop a car.

Is Honda doing better now? Yup. Even if Mclaren was guaranteed/knew Honda would be better than Renault through a crystal ball, they had to leave Honda behind. They were losing sponsors and their previous performances with the Honda PU's had pushed any new investors away. It was best for the team.

[Chandler_Racing]

^Do you think Alonso knows how to develop a car?

Very few will question his outright pace but he has been toxic at the majority of teams he has been at. Rosberg had shared some views on it a couple weeks back.

Every other drive it seems, Alonso declares to have released his inner spiritual animal from the cage and performed his "best drive yet."

Alonso has not done much since the 2004+ Renault era. Personally think the mass damper tarnished some of those wins as it was deemed to be illegal.

He then went on to Ferrari to be a brides made but never the bride.

[npham]

I definitely think Alonso knows how to develop a car better than Stoffel and/or Norris. But he's always been that outspoken and feisty, so you know what you are getting if you sign him up for a seat.