McLaren traveled to Miami International Autodrome for one of the most famous Grand Prix races in the hopes of benefiting more from the floor change that the Papaya Army introduced in the previous race. Furthermore, the modified MCL60 even demonstrated some promise, but this was just before the catastrophe show arrived at the McLaren garage. After some good practice sessions, neither of the team’s pilots was able to get past Q1.

With AlphaTauri being just seven-hundredths of a second faster than McLaren, the Woking-based squad is now the team with the weekend’s slowest overall pace. Papaya Army fans, however, need not panic as Zak Brown and company have introduced a “brilliant strategic thinker” to the Woking-based side who not only brings with him American expertise but also has rejuvenated the McLaren team before as well.

Gil de Ferran is the man to whom we are referring. Although the French-Brazilian racing driver has never driven an F1 vehicle, he has all the amenities to put the MCL60 back on track. Ferran won the 2003 Indianapolis 500 and is a two-time IndyCar champion. The individual is not new to the team since Ferran previously worked with McLaren as the sporting director from 2018 to 2021. Speaking about his caliber, he is the one who once said that “no rest until we are P1 and P2.” The fact that when he joined the team, the Woking-based team was in ninth in the constructor’s championship, under the worst conditions, and with his efforts McLaren was up at P3 in 2020, speaks volumes about his abilities.

It appears that everything has come full circle at the McLaren garage as team principal Andrea Stella, who previously worked with Ferran as the performance director of the Woking-based company, has now contacted him once more to guide the squad to the same heights. Stella’s appointment as team principal prompted certain organizational changes, with director James Key being replaced by a new, three-pronged leadership structure.

Andrea Stella outlined the role of the ‘champion man’ on Motorsports.com. He said, “Gil is essentially a consultant, so non-operational, non-executive and that’s a role as a consultant to myself and to Piers [Thynne, the newly appointed McLaren Racing COO]. We thought that Gil, with us during this process, during this journey, would add horsepower from a leadership point of view.”

While hailing the man, Stella added, “Gil is not only very knowledgeable about racing, but is definitely strong in identifying talent, supporting talent. He’s a great coach, is a quite brilliant strategic thinker and you can talk to Gil more as an engineer than as a driver actually. To be honest, I’m not sure how he developed so much technical knowledge. He is a brilliant person that we want to have alongside.”

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At the Baku circuit, McLaren implemented several anticipated alterations. The car responded favorably to the changes, but in Miami, they trailed behind. However, the team’s CEO remains upbeat about the team’s performance and feels they are going to improve as a result of the organizational revamp.

Zak Brown is hopeful to deliver performance after the organizational overhaul

After reaching Baku, a number of teams were prepared to make adjustments to their vehicle and performance. McLaren, who had earlier stated that they had fallen short of some developmental goals and were planning on bringing upgrades to Baku, was the team to keep an eye out for. Before tackling some significant modifications before the summer break, the crew upgraded their MCL 60 at the Azerbaijan track by bringing some floor changes.

However when the squad appeared to be having trouble at the Miami Circuit once more, Brown expects they will gain from the structural overhaul being led by Andre Stella’s new technological framework in some time. As per Motorsports.com, the team’s CEO said, “What we’ve done is optimise the organisation and given real clarity to roles. What [Andrea] identified was we structurally weren’t optimised, so we went about setting out what would the optimum structure look like and then you populate that org chart. There were some changes we wanted to then make to optimise the new structure and so there’s a lot of energy and clarity inside the MTC.”

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While concluding the American said, “I think now the upgrades, which will start coming, are starting to show the work of the new structure that we have in place and hopefully will continue to develop over the course of the year.”

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Do you think the structural revamp combined with the upgrades will bring the McLaren glory back?