Vandoorne: McLaren F1 management restructure not a big surprise

Stoffel Vandoorne believes McLaren’s Formula 1 management reshuffle comes as no big surprise following the team’s disappointing start to 2018.

Earlier this week McLaren confirmed Eric Boullier had resigned from his role of racing director after four years, leading to a new three-pronged management structure being implemented in time for this weekend’s British Grand Prix.

McLaren had high expectations of moving up F1’s pecking order heading into a new partnership with Renault in 2018. But with the Woking-based squad currently languishing in sixth place in the constructors’ standings and having so far failed to meet its pre-season targets of returning to the podium, Vandoorne said changes were always likely.

“I think ultimately [it’s] not a big surprise,” he admitted. “I think there has been a lot of pressure on our team lately and the results this year have been not as we want them to be, as expected.

“I think ultimately this is what happened. Now we have a new structure in place that I feel is positive for the future. It wont change the results overnight. We have to be realistic.

“There is a lot of work ahead, a lot of things we need to change, but there’s a bit more of a simple structure at this time and I think this is the first step to hopefully a positive future.”

Vandoorne said both he and teammate Fernando Alonso were in favour of the changes.

“Zak called us yesterday before the news went out and of course we were very supportive of Zak,” Vandoorne said.

“Zak’s been now CEO for only a couple of months let’s say, a bit more involved with the team, and yeah, like I said, I think the change is a positive change. It’s always making things move forward. So hopefully we can see some results of that.”

As part of the reshuffle, McLaren Racing chief operating officer Simon Roberts will oversee the technical team, with Andrea Stella promoted to performance director and team advisor Gil de Ferran handed the role of sporting director.

When asked if he felt whether McLaren now had the right structure in place, Vandoorne replied: “I believe it is. I wouldn’t say this is the final structure. I feel like there’ll probably be some more changes happening. But ultimately it’s up to the management to decide those and to put those in place.

"I don’t know if it will make it calmer, let’s say. I don’t think because we had one change coming up now that the results will change dramatically. There’s still a lot of work ahead. Everyone realises that. This is the target for now, to understand the current issues of our car and make sure that next year we turn up a lot stronger.”