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Brown pinpoints reasons behind McLaren's downfall

Brown pinpoints reasons behind McLaren's downfall

11-12-2018 18:30 Last update: 18:32
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Bobby Vincent

According to McLaren CEO Zak Brown; the reason behind the team's downfall over recent seasons has been primarily down to a "lack of leadership".

McLaren made the decision to switch to Renault's power unit from Honda at the start of 2018 to try and challenge for more in Formula One once again - but the MCL33 suffered with aerodynamic issues throughout the season.

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Brown believes that part of McLaren's issues was down to the leadership at the Woking outfit, or lack of, that dragged the team below its potential.

“Ultimately, what got us here this year started five years ago. This year’s problem is years in the works,” Brown said.

“My summary of that is that we’ve had a lack of consistent leadership. I don’t point the fingers at any one individual. That was a lack of focus because of all the activities that were going on, from the boardroom down: buyouts; merging of companies; team principals in; team principals out; CEOs in; CEOs out.

“It was just a constant revolving kind of lack of focus, and I think that’s what created the issue. And then what fell out of that is that people didn’t have clear goals and accountability, responsibility.

“Ultimately that’s what produced a poor race car this year. It was kind of our structure, our organisation. The individual people are extremely talented. We’ve got world championships, we’ve got over 100 people that have been here for over 20 years.

“They haven’t forgotten how to win we just didn’t have the right infrastructure in place, and that’s what we’ve set out to fix.”