The influence McLaren’s new F1 arrivals are already having

Sanchez and Marshall’s moves from Ferrari and Red Bull were announced by McLaren last year, but the pair only officially started work at Woking in early January.

Both have been hired to bolster McLaren’s restructured technical department, following the opening of a brand new state-of-the-art wind tunnel. McLaren don’t expect to feel the full effects of their new investment until 2025.

However, team principal Andrea Stella says it has not taken long for Sanchez and Marshall to make their presence felt.

“So in terms of organisation in the technical team they actually fill roles that were already there,” Stella is quoted as saying by RACER.

“The structure has always been with these three technical directors; one working on aero – Peter Prodromou – one on performance and concept – now David Sanchez – and then engineering and design that makes all the ideas generated in aero and performance and concept become part of the car.

“That was a structure and that was a vision, now we have filled in the positions with David and Rob having started.

“Definitely what we can see in the first two weeks is that they come with quite a lot of knowledge, which is no surprise, they’ve been part of great teams, great projects. This knowledge, the good thing, I think we see this integrates with our knowhow.

“So it’s not like ‘ah we should do things in this way’, which is the opposite to what we’re doing, it’s we can do things in this way, which adds to what we do, which is refreshing.

“We have also had the possibility to appreciate their personal approach, which I think has engaged people in fascinating technical conversations. We see the momentum, the energy, the ideas, which flow through the organisation.”

Stella added: “Practically, we need to think right now – not only at McLaren – we have a 2024 car, then we are already setting the basis for how do we evolve the ’24 onto the ’25 , and then there’s a 26 project with completely new technical regulations.

“So there’s so much work that we need to go through that is very important to have these high calibers leading their respective technical areas because this means we have the capacity, the capability, the competence, to approach these three big projects with the horsepower to compete at the top of Formula 1.”

McLaren head into 2024 looking to improve on their fourth-place finish in last year’s constructors’ championship, which followed an incredible mid-season turnaround.