Formula 1: McLaren decision signals major change in approach

After a rough start to the 2023 Formula 1 season for McLaren, they decided to fire technical director James Key, signaling a change in approach.

McLaren recently made a big change to their Formula 1 team, firing technical director James Key after race number two of the 2023 season.

Key had been leading the design team, but the severely underwhelming performances from the team in the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix called for a sudden switch quite early on.

McLaren are looking to solve their major problem with a different approach. They will now have three people working as a technical team rather than just a sole technical director.

Those three individuals are David Sanchez, who will be leading car concept and performance, Peter Prodromou, who will be leading aerodynamics, and Neil Houldey, who will be leading engineering and design.

This could be the move McLaren need to get back on track in the 2023 Formula 1 season.

Additionally, it is best for this to happen sooner rather than later, given the fact that it is still early on in the season. There is reason to believe that this will help McLaren a lot going forward, as each person within the technical team will have something specific to focus on.

The team should make strides in the right direction, and those strides should increase once McLaren’s new wind tunnel is available for use later this season.

The upcoming upgrade packages for the MCL60 should give confidence to Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri as they hunt for points every race weekend.

This should ultimately be able to give the team the boost they need to put them back into the midfield battle and get them out of last place in the constructor standings.

The season’s third race is Australian Grand Prix, which is scheduled to take place at Albert Park Circuit on Sunday, April 2. ESPN is set to broadcast the live race beginning at 1:00 a.m. ET, so begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don’t miss it!