McLaren F1 Recalls Gilles de Ferran as Consultant Amid Restructuring Efforts

The McLaren F1 team has recalled former sporting director and Indy 500 winner Gilles de Ferran to act as a consultant in the next stage of the team’s restructuring. After current Sauber CEO and F1 team principal Andreas Seidl stepped down over the winter, his successor Andrea Stella has carried out a complete overhaul of operations alongside boss Zak Brown.

As a result, the technical department was overhauled, with director James Key fired and replaced with a three-pronged leadership structure that included David Sanchez, head of vehicle concepts at Ferrari. Two-time Champ Car champion Gilles de Ferran, who worked with Stella on the team from 2018 to 2020, has now returned to McLaren as an advisor in the next phase of the restructuring. When asked to explain Gilles de Ferran’s role, Stella said: “Gilles is basically a consultant, so he is non-business, non-executive, and a consultant to me and Piers[Tinne, the newly appointed McLaren Racing COO]. It is the role of the Stella added de Ferran, who is working with the team over the weekend of the Miami Grand Prix, will support the existing top of the line with an expanded regulation framework that includes a cost cap. “We thought having Jill with us during this process, this journey, would give us more horsepower from a leadership standpoint,” Stella said. “Gilles is not only very knowledgeable about racing, he is very good at identifying talent and supporting talent,” he said. I can talk to Jill as an engineer.” “Honestly, I don’t know how he got so technically savvy. “It’s a person.” “Gilles is on board, for example, as he was able to turn McLaren’s difficult situation around in 2018 (from 9th in the Constructors’ Championship in 2017 to 3rd after de Ferran left). It has already been proven in the past that doing so can lead to very successful teams: “For example, the team Gilles joined, as when he was able to turn a difficult situation around at McLaren in 2018. It has already proven in the past that it can be very successful (up from 9th in the Constructors’ Championship).”In fact, it was the lowest position in McLaren’s history, but after a few months In the meantime, we set the course for more success in the years that followed.” McLaren also reviewed its young driver development programme, appointing five-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Emmanuel Pirro as leader. appointed to “In the process of innovation and evolution that we started at McLaren, there were priorities that we identified relatively quickly. Those priorities were in the technical area,” Stella said of the move. “But when you start thinking about a Formula 1 team, it’s a very complex entity,” he added.