MAKING McLAREN GREAT AGAIN
Claire Williams approached McLaren chief operating officer Jonathan Neale at the Bahrain Grand Prix with a question: “How have you guys gone so far forward in such a short time?”
Williams might well ask. Not only does she have her own problems to solve, but McLaren’s recovery from a year they ended with the second slowest car to getting cars into the top 10 on the grid three times out of a possible four in the first two races, has been one of the stand-out features of 2019 s0 far.
Neale’s reply? “A lot of hard work.”
After a dire start to 2018, McLaren had a corporate moment of clarity. The result was a wholesale restructuring - and its effect has been clear at the start of this season.
Interestingly, McLaren’s progress on track has been inversely proportional to the tenor of its public pronouncements. McLaren’s build up to 2019 was a study in understatement. There were no bold predictions; all that was projected was a seriousness about the task at hand - the need to rebuild - and a recognition that it would take time.
“When you have issues,” chief executive officer Zak Brown says, “you have to look in the mirror. And the first step is acknowledging and recognising you’ve got issues and it took us too long to get there.”
The decline started in 2013, McLaren’s first winless season since 2006. In 2014, they were at least two seconds a lap slower than Mercedes despite having the same engine. Then
