McLaren "Years Away" From Title Challenge

[Paul Jeffrey]

In a blow for the vast army of McLaren fans, CEO Zak Brown has admitted the British team could well be "years" away from winning another World Championship in Formula One.

The last few years have been nothing short of dreadful for McLaren, a team steeped in motor racing heritage since being founded by the legendary Bruce McLaren back in 1963. Having secured no less than 182 Grand Prix victories and 12 drivers and eight Constructors titles up to 2012, success has been a little thin on the ground in Woking. Victory for Jenson Button at the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix remains the final success for McLaren, with the following years delivering a smattering of points finishes and just two podiums, despite the driving skills of arguably one of Formula One's most talented drivers, Fernando Alonso.

With Eric Boullier now removed from the team and Indy 500 winner Gill de Ferran drafted into a new role of Sporting Director, McLaren have begun the long road to recovery as they continue with their aim of returning to winning ways in Formula One. However with a move to Renault power for 2018 failing to provide the boost in performance many expected, and reports suggesting the current car is producing less downforce than even last seasons machine, recovering back to where McLaren realistically belong at the head of the field could be a long way off, something that CEO Zac Brown confirmed in a recent interview ahead of the McLaren's home Grand Prix at Silverstone this weekend:

"This is going to take some time to fix" said Brown when speaking to the official Formula One website. "I think we are years away. I don’t know if that’s two or 10, or somewhere in-between. Probably more like somewhere in-between, but I don’t want to get into predictions.

“I have to be very realistic and honest with yourself, with our fans, with you, to say that this is going to be a journey. I think everyone needs to recognise that.”​

With the downward spiral having been halted somewhat this year, despite a relatively disappointing haul of results to date, it certainly looks like things are slowly beginning to turn around again in the post Ron Dennis era - but is it too little too late for McLaren, or can the team finally get back to winning ways in the short term, and provide a race winning machine for Fernando Alonso before he steps away from Formula One for good?

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Do you agree with Brown's assessment of the future for McLaren in Formula One? Would you like to see McLaren back in the hunt for wins and championships? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[Diogo Goetz Brand]

"Years" sounds quite optimistic IMO. And that's coming from a McLaren fan.

 

[davewilliams000]

Yep at least they've finally admitted there are organisational problems now, which means they can get on with fixing things. Sounds somewhat hopeful that they can now make progress.

If they can retain Alonso though is another question altogether. Some news sourses suggesting that there is some influence there from him with the promotion of Andrea Stella, who was Alonso's engineer at Ferrari and came with him to McLaren. Fernando has played down this speculation himself though. My money would be on a sabbatical to indycar (in a McLaren/Andretti autosport partnership team) to go for the tripple crown and another championship whilst the F1 team gets itself together

 

[Durge Driven]

Sorry for being sarcastic, does he mean like the other 6 teams that also have Buckley's chance of winning anything

I don't know, most every series I can think of have done a lot of work to make more level playing field, so no wonder F1 gets left behind by fans

 

[Grape-Juice]

I don't care if they win world championships I just want them to get to RedBull level.

 

[supersonic92]

I don't care if they win world championships I just want them to get to RedBull level.

Red Bull are title contenders, they are far away and with a works deal in the near future.

 

[Grape-Juice]

Red Bull are title contenders, they are far away and with a works deal in the near future.

Your not a title contender if your car can only get pole in Monaco

 

[wombat999]

No.
Yes.

 

[Dirk Steffen]

Why not close the shop and focus entirely on GT racing - F1 has no future anyway the way it is headed.

The racing is in GT racing and soon to be in electrified vehicle racing. Close McLaren's embarrassing F1 effort now, focus on GT3, perhaps even built a GTE car and be prepared when FE takes off (you want to keep selling road cars where electric premium vehicles are about to take off).

 

[Knoxstar]

I think Alonzo's dressing room will soon be available if anyone is interested. Talk about managing expectations! Very sad for a once great marque.

 

[guidofoc]

With Williams scraping the bottom and McLaren too.. it occurred to me that there is no competitive UK F1 team at the moment. I started watching F1 as a kid in 1979 (Ferrari fan of course, I'm Italian), and since then all I can remember is Lotus, Brabham, McLaren, Williams, Tyrrell, March, Benetton etc. Where the hell are they? Ok Mercedes and RedBull have their HQ in UK but.. what happened?

 

[M-Bimmer]

Smells like someone got a fat check when switched to Honda while screwing the team...Or it was just the worst decision ever made to make that switch...or the team simply sucked since Ron left...Who knows

 

[pitkin]

I can't see them ever getting back to the top. They are destined to drop to the bottom along with Williams. (My two favourite teams since becoming an F1 fan in 1985) F1 seems to make it hard for struggling teams to get back on even terms, because the rules are so tight. It's very hard to innovate their way out of trouble now, so only money can save them, but it's a catch 22, the lower they fall, the less they have (prize money, sponsors), so they'll continue to fall. Alonso will leave soon,then they'll have 2 rookie drivers that bring finances but not the 3 or 4 tenths that a quality driver can give them, sending them further backwards. Methinks Honda, for all it's failings was their best hope of becoming great again someday.
Still at least I can watch my 2 favourite teams battling like the old days, just shame it's for last place.

 

[Andrew Harper]

The sad situation at the moment is that the top three teams in F1 still have a huge performance advantage over the rest. Maybe not quite so much this year but when you look at the finishing results from most grand prix recently the Mercs, Ferrari's and Red Bulls pretty much lap everybody.

That is a huge gap to close down, regardless of which team you are and as a motorsport fan it does make me slightly sad that once great teams will almost never be able to close this gap unless something falls in their favour.

The issue @guidofoc is in the 90's apart from Ferrari you only really had private teams. Williams, McLaren, Benetton, Arrows, Tyrell, Larrousse, Minardi, and Sauber for example.

Once the budgets spiralled and the manufacturers got involved these privateer teams have either vanished or suffered at the back of the grid.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure what the answer is. F1 will always suffer this sort of divide between the big teams and the little teams but the giant killers don't exist anymore and they can't challenge like they could.

The only thing I have noticed in the past is when the regulations are used for more than a few years the level of racing tends to get better, so maybe that's one answer. Leave well alone, let the teams develop the cars. Every time there's a huge change the teams spend millions developing the cars to accommodate it and most teams simply don't have that resource.

 

[Terry Rock]

I think Zak's prediction is spot on.
He seems very realistic in his expectations.
To think a few years ago the McLaren-Mercedes 'juggernaut' provided such a winning combination, drivers were fighting for a chance at a seat.
Just confirms that Lewis made the right decision when he did.

 

[Ghoults]

Mclaren is going to need its own engine manufacturer to be succesful in F1. Red bull are already seeing the writing on the wall with renault. Better take a big gamble with honda than to become the 2nd renault team. Renault is not going to play it fair as it was proven last year when toro rosso was barely getting enough parts to build engines for the races. So for red bull it was just a matter of time anyways before renault factory team gets the best parts while red bull gets what mclaren is getting.

In a way it is just so weird what happened to mclaren in just two years. Last year they had very good chassis which is proven by some of their sector times in the twistier bits on some tracks but the honda engine was just total failure. Now they have the 3rd best engine which should be much better than the honda they had last year but their chassis seems to be lacking. Most worrying is the lack of top speed. Did mclaren have draggy but high downforce last year as well while everybody else were running lower downforce higher speed cars? I don't think it is possible to be that different with your car design compared to the rest of the pack and not notice it. But I'd guess it is possible mclaren was just running high downforce which is going to make anyone fast in the twisty bits... and make them super slow on straights.

I'd really like to see mclaren near the top. But I'd also like more balance in f1. It is just so wrong when the top 3 teams totally dominate the rest. There should be chance for the mid field teams to score podiums all the time and sometimes even luck into a win. Nowadays you need 6 cars to dnf before any of the mid field teams even have a chance. There is no way to get to the podium unless a car in front has a technical problem.

 

[mysterion157]

Shocking revelation, never would have predicted this

 

[RobertGracie]

Its sad to see a team like this be in this state....I am deeply upset with this....30 years ago they under the fire breathing dragon which we called "Ron Dennis" were near unbeatable apart from a wild Jean-Louis Schlesser and a Spark Plug they almost had the golden season and now look at them they are not the fearsome team that was!

 

[Qazdar Karim]

It's over for McLaren F1, they should focus on something else.

 

[Jan Larsen]

With the current package, people and managament, its more like decades.