Boullier: McLaren must deeply rethink its approach to Formula 1

McLaren must change its approach to racing to return to the top. This is at least what its new sporting director, Eric Boullier, believes, echoing the statements made by Alain Prost regarding the adaptability of big names in Formula 1 to the discipline’s new developments.

For the Frenchman, it is evident that a profound change is necessary, and this is the mission entrusted to him by Ron Dennis: « McLaren has been doing things the same way for a long time… maybe too long even. We need to refresh this a little bit. I quote the words of Ron Dennis who said that McLaren has become a team of engineers rather than a racing team. We have lost a bit of flexibility. We may also have somewhat lost the ability to analyze the external environment. »

The Lotus defector, who arrived at Woking at the beginning of the year, is fully aware of the challenge he faces in changing the mindset and working methods within the team: « It’s a very competitive sport. We have to constantly monitor what others are doing. And if someone is better than us, we must try to understand why, rather than looking at ourselves and waiting for better days. It’s a kind of cultural shift. »

And there are likely to be changes at all levels at McLaren, as has been undertaken notably on the aerodynamic engineering side: « There have been drastic changes in the aero department at McLaren and I think with a new strategy in place and a new direction, we will manage to get to where we need to be. On that front, we have taken the first step. And from there, we will take another step towards trying to become a winning team again and then capable of being world champions. »

But if, currently, the lack of competitiveness of the team has deep-rooted origins, it also stems from a poor understanding of the new regulations imposed on the discipline since the beginning of the year, as Boullier confirms: McLaren has been and still is a big machine capable of reacting. The main difference is that the world around us has changed. We can no longer do tests, we have more and more restrictions in the wind tunnel, and increasingly more restrictions in all areas. So, in terms of reactivity, we have less capability—not within the team, but in terms of what we can do. And that’s something that may have been forgotten when they took quite a few risks with the concept cars.

Times have changed, and McLaren now has to adapt to this natural evolution: « They obviously expected to come back, but we can’t recover as much as we used to. It’s a change in strategy. The way you build new cars, the way you introduce new concepts, everything has been revised. It won’t be like before, because we can’t afford to do it anymore. »