Brown: 'Pressure' led to Eric Boullier exit
Jul.5 - Zak Brown says "pressure" on McLaren led to the departure of team boss Eric Boullier.
Amid McLaren's continuing performance crisis and rumblings of internal staff strife, Frenchman Boullier 'resigned' this week.
"It was a very difficult time for everyone at McLaren with a lot of pressure on our shoulders," team executive Brown told L'Equipe.
"In the end, he felt that McLaren needed to move forward. It was not a surprise. We have been under pressure and underperforming for too long," he added.
When asked if Boullier was told to resign or he actually resigned, Brown answered: "I do not intend to go into detail about my exchanges with Eric. I don't think it's appropriate."
At the same time as Boullier's departure, McLaren announced that consultant Gil de Ferran will now step into a full time sporting director role.
Brown said Andrea Stella will be in charge on race weekends.
"The situation we are in did not occur in a day and will not be resolved in a day," Brown warned. "Today is the first step to return to the path to victory."
As for whether Boullier's existing role will be replaced, Brown said he wasn't sure.
"This is the beginning of a process and I think we will examine it further in due course."
What is clear is that Fernando Alonso is probably happy with the changes, as he is close to Brown, his former Ferrari race engineer Stella, and Indy 500 champion de Ferran.
Brown admits the Spaniard was "involved" in the restructuring.
And he admitted that one of McLaren's problems in the last few years was "communication", especially after claiming in the Honda era that it had the best car.
"We do not have the best chassis," he admitted. "At least not this year.
"We do have to admit that we made mistakes in communication. It is always dangerous to make predictions and pronouncements. From today's point of view, we would have done something quite different."
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Let’s review Zak Browns accomplishments: he has renamed the chassis, he has repainted the car, he has gotten rid of most of the sponsorship on the car (so the new paint can shine thru), he has allowed an engine supplier to bring McLaren to its lowest point in decades, he has wasted away the last years of two World Champions. That about sums it up. Maybe he should think about resigning.
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