Tag Archives: F1

VW Motorsport boss Jost Capito is to take up a new role as the chief executive officer of McLaren Racing.

Meanwhile as part of a wider shake-up Jonathan Neale, the acting CEO of McLaren Racing, has been appointed the chief operating officer of McLaren Technology Group.

Eric Boullier continues as racing director of McLaren Racing, while Ron Dennis’s role as executive chairman and CEO of McLaren Technology Group remains unchanged. Both Capito and Neale will report to him.

McLaren says that “the timing of these moves will be actioned in 2016 in agreement with Jost’s current employer, and a further announcement will follow in due course.”

“Consistent with McLaren Technology Group’s strategy of driving continuous growth, Jonathan has been promoted to the position of COO,” said Dennis. “He has done an excellent job as acting CEO of McLaren Racing – and that experience, together with the expertise he has attained in non-motorsport industry positions previously, makes him ideally suited to such an important new role at McLaren Technology Group.

“I first approached Jost last summer. He is an extremely impressive, competitive and ambitious individual, who comes to us with a very wide range of automotive and motorsport experience, encompassing senior positions at BMW, Porsche, Ford, Sauber and, since 2012, Volkswagen, leading the latter company’s World Rally Championship team to consecutive world titles in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

“From a motorsport perspective he has experience in not only the World Rally Championship but also Sports Cars, Touring Cars, Motorcycle Racing and Formula 1, about which he is hugely knowledgeable and infectiously passionate.”

Neale said: “After 15 years in senior roles within McLaren Racing, most recently as COO and acting CEO, I am excited to be moving up to take on a wider remit, working directly with Ron to assist his leadership of McLaren Technology Group.

“I have enjoyed my time at McLaren Racing, and will of course remain closely involved in supporting Jost’s and Eric’s efforts to optimise the future success of the McLaren-Honda programme.

“But I am equally conscious of my new areas of responsibility and influence within McLaren Technology Group, and  I am particularly keen to bring to bear my wider industry expertise and experience to drive forward our strategy to grow each of our Group businesses.”

Red Bull boss Christian Horner says that the Mercedes domination is not good for F1 – and qualified his opinion by insisting that despite Sebastian Vettel’s four titles his team was never in such a strong position.

Horner says that the sport has to realise that the fans are important.

“I think that predictable and serial results, serial winning, is difficult for any sport,” he said. “We were accused of it but we never enjoyed the continuation of success or longevity of success. Two of our world championships went to the last race and we never ever finished 1-2 in a world championship, and I think that inevitably with that kind of predictabilty, people get turned off and it needs a re-jig to bring it closer together.

“I don’t think anyone wants to see Fernando Alonso just taking part, we want to see him competing, we want to see Daniel Ricciardo competing, we want to see Sebastian Vettel competing against Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. The teams will never achieve that, because there is far too much self interest, and you cannot expect the teams to achieve that. That is for the regulator, and the governing body, to come up with a set of rules that achieves those objectives.”

With talks contuuing about future engine rules Horner denied that the sport is in crisis.

“Crisis is a strong word. There are things that need sorting out for the future. We need strong leadership at any time of uncertainty. That is vitally important and we need strong leadership from the commercial rights holder (Bernie Ecclestone) and the governing body, to plot the path of the future that addresses what the fans need and what the fans want to see.

“Because without them, there is no F1. And F1 ultimately has to be a show, it has to be entertainment and it has to appeal to a broad spectrum of fans and spectators.”

Bernie Ecclestone believes that Lotus F1 will not survive if Renault boss Carlos Ghosn does not green light the takeover deal next week.

This week Ecclestone has been in talks with senior Renault executive Jerome Stoll about the team’s future income, on the basis that it becomes a works entry.

Team co-owner Gerard Lopez has said that the team still has a Mercedes contract as a Plan B, and if forced to remain independent Lotus would head into next season with a much reduced staffing level. However Ecclestone suggests that the team could not continue on that basis.

“I’m sure they’ll stop,” he told this writer. “They are running a business unsuccessfully, they haven’t got enough money to keep going. So they’ll stop. They’re in trouble with finance anyway, so I can’t see that a Mercedes contract is going to help.”

Regarding the crucial Renault decision he said: “No news. We’re waiting for Mr Ghosn on Monday.”

Ecclestone also confirmed that negotiations with Renault were complicated when an apparent agreement with FOM that guaranteed a 2016 supply for Red Bull was trumped by a separate deal between Renault and the team.

“We made an offer, they [Renault] came back saying we are happy with the offer, if you change this, this and this. We agreed to buy engines from them to supply to the teams. They said that’s good. We’d pay for the engines and we’d just sell them.

“So they had an offer from us on the table to buy engines to sell to Red Bull, to make sure they got an engine, and then they go and do a deal with Red Bull. We were trying to help, but they didn’t need any help, they did it on their own.”

Lotus owner Gerard Lopez says that the team’s deal with Renault is done – and now it’s a question of a final green light from the French manufacturer’s top boss, Carlos Ghosn.

Senior Renault executive Jerome Stoll is in Abu Dhabi this weekend, and he has been trying to finalise an agreement with Bernie Ecclestone over future payments.

“We’ve done everything that we could,” Lopez told this writer. “As far as Lotus and Renault go, we have an agreement. I can tell you the contracts are finished. Then the rest, let’s wait and see.”

Asked if it was simply a case of waiting for a decision from Ghosn, who is expected to make a call on Monday, he said: “You can say that, yes.”

He added that Stoll’s talks with Ecclestone were progressing, and that it was a question of a small difference in figures.

“I think that is being done in a constructive way.”

Meanwhile Lopez is adamant that if the Renault deal collapses at the last minute the team can continue with its current engine supplier.

“There is Lotus F1 Team with a Mercedes engine. We would probably cut down to what I always said. If we cannot compete at this level, we don’t want to be funding it the way we did in the past, then we’ll run it at say 300 people. But that’s not the objective.

“The idea is to do Renault, but legally speaking, I can still run a Mercedes car next year. If I need it, we have a contract with Mercedes. We do, trust me. ”

Lopez also denied suggestions that the team had been baled out by Ecclestone after its freight arrived late at Abu Dhabi.

“Other teams are asking for their £10m advance. We haven’t, at all. I read that Bernie paid for everything here, which he didn’t. He advanced by a couple of days out monthly payment, that’s it.

“It’s not easy because we are refusing to just pour money into something when we know that the decision that we’ve taken is to sell. If I didn’t do that people would say he’s a bit of an idiot as a businessman.

“I think we’ve done the right thing, first of all to keep 470 people employed. Number two we’ve shown that with minimal development, this team can score points, which goes to show what others are doing with money. The third thing is we’ve pushed on with this deal.

“Either we get more money, or costs come down in F1, or it’s a constructors’ sport. If it is, then I might as well be a constructor, which is the aim for this team with Renault. At the end of the day all that bullshit about the financials and so on, we’re always there, we’re always competing.”

Advanced Engine Research has joined Ilmor Engineering in responding to the FIA’s call for expressions of interest for an alternative F1 powerplant for 2017.

The FIA wants an engine of up to 2.5-litres which produces around around 650kW (or 870bhp) and does not feature energy recovery.

The call is the first step to issuing a full tender, after which a winner will be chosen. However it remains to be seen how the required change of rules will be voted through at next week’s F1 Commission meeting – although the FIA may yet try to force it through the World Motor Sport Council without getting the majority support of the Commission, on the basis of force majeure.

Ilmor’s submission was expected, given that it is closely associated with Red Bull and has a V6 Indycar engine which could form the basis of an F1 project.

UK-based AER held the GP3 engine contract from 2013-’15, and was a serious contender for the current GP2 deal before losing out at the last minute to Mecachrome. AER also provides the Indy Lights spec engine, and supplies both the Rebellion and Kolles LMP1 teams. It’s a smaller capacity version of the latter WEC engine, a twin-turbo V6 known as the P60, which will form the basis of the proposed F1 engine.

AER’s engineering manager Andrew Saunders has extensive F1 experience as he was previously with Ilmor, and he worked closely with McLaren in 2001-‘7as track support manager.

“AER are very interested in the proposal from the FIA,” company CEO Mike Lancaster told this writer. “We’re putting in a submission for it. The request seems to fit nicely with our latest V6 GDI engine.

“They’re looking for something which produces a lot of power, and we have an engine that can do that. The WEC engine is the P60, the engine we’re proposing is called the P66, which is a higher revving version of that. It will be ideal for the job, we believe.”