Back then, when in 2017 McLaren has announced its ‘divorce’ with Honda, the team blamed power unit supplier for the failures and stated that the car’s chassis is almost ideal. Well, one season with the new Renault engines has passed, but we’re all still waiting for a progress – McLaren became 6^th in the constructors’ championship, which means it finished 2018 on the lower position than Red Bull and Renault factory team itself.

However, big management changes and restructure was made during last year:

• Zak Brown became the CEO of McLaren Racing in April
• Eric Boullier stepped off the position of racing director
• Gil de Ferran was announced to take the newly created position of sporting director
• Andrea Stella became performance director
• James Key was set to join the team in 2019 as new technical chief

Yet another appointment was made earlier this week – the team from Woking has signed Andreas Seidl as the new managing director. Note that Seidl, ex-boss of Porsche's WEC team, has put the team together from scratch for Porsche's return to endurance racing in 2014 and has already witnessed it’s WEC championship and Le Mans victories.

Zak Brown appreciates him highly, as he said:

“We are delighted that Andreas is joining McLaren to lead our F1 technical and operational programme. This is a significant appointment for us on two fronts.

First, it is another important step in our F1 performance recovery plan and long-term commitment to F1. Second, concentrated senior leadership on our F1 programme is an integral part of the long-term strategy of McLaren Racing to expand into other forms of global motorsport over time.

Andreas is a highly capable leader with a track record of success in everything he has been involved with, and I look forward to working with him.”

It should be noted also, that Seidl has already been in the paddock and knows what it is from inside – he worked in Formula 1 with BMW and Sauber in 2000-2006 and 2009.

Of course, in such changing conditions it’s really difficult to put it all together to win races and championships, but McLaren stands on its way of returning, the bosses are hiring new people, changing the structure of the team, trying to turn the tide. Periods of reformation have never been easy, it takes long to form a team of people that understand each other in every aspect and truly do their best to build a competitive car.