Eric Boullier prepared to 'bruise egos' to fix McLaren F1 team

Eric Boullier says he is prepared to "bruise some egos" as he continues his work to return McLaren to the front of the Formula 1 grid.
McLaren racing director Boullier and F1 CEO Jonathan Neale have restructured the Woking squad since Boullier arrived from Lotus last winter.
The process has also included hiring new aerodynamicists.
Boullier revealed the most recent phase of his restructure has been focused on getting the team's departments to work together more harmoniously, and he vowed to make more changes if necessary.
"It's the same people that have won many, many races in the world championship."
"It's about why they can't work together and why they can't reach the target.
"It's more about the culture and bringing back the right leadership, the right management and putting the right processes in place.
"It will take time and it may bruise some egos, but there will be some changes in the team because we have to close the book and start a new one.
"We want to be as successful, as we were before - McLaren has very successful heritage - this is why we won't be starting from scratch.
"I think we are on top of it now. It's not completely processed, but it will be done soon."
ON THE RIGHT PATH
McLaren scored a double podium finish in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, but currently lies sixth in the constructors' championship - it's worst placing since it finished there in 1981.
However, better form in recent races has convinced Boullier the team is on the right path to re-discovering the form it will need when it enters its new works engine partnership with Honda in 2015.
"We have definitely stopped getting 'down' and in the past couple of months we have got back on track," Boullier added.
"It's always difficult to stop a downwards spiral, but it now looks like we have stopped it.
"We know it is going to take time to get back to the top. We have to be realistic, but at least now it looks like we are coming up.
"I think by the end of the year 95 per cent will be completed and the foundation of McLaren for the next 10 years will be in place."
WELCOMING CHANGE

Former McLaren driver Alain Prost said earlier this year that his old team needed to "rethink" its approach in order to win again in Formula 1.
Boullier agreed with this sentiment and said he was surprised by how willing McLaren personnel were to accept the need for change.
"They knew that something was going wrong and most of the people were open-minded and happy to welcome changes."
"My feeling is they are starting to accept the change and are beginning to get motivated again.
"I expect the team to be much stronger next year and it will be good if we can deliver straight away."
AGGRESSIVE UPGRADES
McLaren has pursued an aggressive upgrade programme with its MP4-29 so far this season and Boullier said this would continue when the campaign resumes at Spa next weekend after F1's summer shutdown.
"We have some updates coming after the summer shutdown," Boullier confirmed.
"We have major upgrades and they will be part of the process to see what we can deliver and seeing if we can reach our achievable targets."

F1 teams need advance warning over 18-inch wheel move - Allison

Ferrari technical director James Allison thinks it vital that Formula 1 teams get sufficient advance warning before the possible introduction of 18-inch wheels in the sport.
Last month, F1 tyre supplier Pirelli evaluated the bigger wheels during testing with a view at introducing them in the near future.
The Italian manufacturer said it would be ready to provide 18-inch tyres as early as 2016 if F1 wanted.
Allison says, however, that the introduction of the bigger wheels must be planned carefully and with plenty of time, as he warned that teams would need the new tyres at least a year before they are raced in order to develop their cars properly.
"One of the things that is extremely important to all of us teams is that we have accurate windtunnel tyres, because one of the most aerodynamically important things on the car is the tyre," said Allison.
"It has an extremely first-order effect on how much downforce you have and accurately reproducing the shape of the real tyre in the windtunnel and in CFD is of critical importance to accurately simulating downforce in those tools.
"So whoever gets the tyre tender for 2017, if it is an 18-inch thing, they need to be providing windtunnel tyres about a year before we use the real tyres on the track.
"So ensuring that the tyre tender is set up so that the schedule of that delivery is correct for the teams is going to be important."
Allison also thinks the introduction of bigger wheels would have a significant impact on new engineering ideas.
"It will be a substantially interesting project because the tyres will have very different characteristics," he said.
"The space that it will free up in the wheels will allow for a fair amount of research and engineering, and it is something that will have to be unfolded in a quite well planned way for the entire sport."

Volkswagen out to settle scores at home

Volkswagen will start this week’s Rallye Deutschland determined to make up for a miserable outing on home ground last year and with the chance of securing a trio of FIA World Rally Championship titles.

WRC round nine is the first opportunity for defending champions Volkswagen to seal this year’s manufacturers’ title. And with its three crews leading the drivers’ and co-drivers’ standings, a good result could guarantee that two more trophies are on their way to Wolfsburg.

In 2013 much was expected of the team by its home crowd. But after the pre-event withdrawal of Andreas Mikkelsen, and crashes for Sebastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala, it turned out to be only round of the season in which no VW driver made it onto the podium.

Now, as it prepares to tackle the asphalt roads around Trier for a second time, Volkswagen Motorsport Director Jost Capito accepted the pressure was on.

Capito: "The pressure is really high"

He said: “We have a score to settle with the Rally Germany since last year, as missing out on the podium at our home event is not a nice memory to have.
“The pressure is really high and we expect a better result and that’s what we are working for this year. We are working hard, with all of our energy focused.
"The approach will be the same as all rallies this season: we’ve got to do our best and to deliver to our bosses the right result on that rally.”
After the team’s one-two victory in Finland, Capito said he would like to secure the manufacturers’ title in Germany 'in style, preferably with a rally win.'

Number crunching: What will secure the titles for VW?

Manufacturers:

Volkswagen has a lead in the manufacturers’ standings of 175 points over closest rival Citroën. If it manages to keep a gap of at least 172 after Rally Germany, Volkswagen will win the manufacturers’ world championship.

Drivers and co-drivers

Defending champions Ogier and Ingrassia have a lead of 121 points over the best non-Volkswagen duo, Citroen’s Mads Østberg and Jonas Andersson. If they still have a lead of 112 points after Germany, it will definitely be a Volkswagen duo who will celebrate victory in the drivers’ and co-drivers’ standings. Ogier/Ingrassia are currently in the lead on 187 points, followed by teammates Latvala/Anttila (143 points) and Mikkelsen (95 points).

Max Mosley: Budget cap still Formula 1's only hope for cost control

Formula 1's bid to control costs will only ever succeed if the sport accepts the need for a budget cap, reckons former FIA president Max Mosley.
With F1's chiefs and teams having failed to agree on changes that will drastically cut spending next year, grand prix racing's smaller outfits are resigned to an ongoing struggle to keep finances in check.
Mosley, who during his reign as FIA president from 1993 to 2009 campaigned hard to control costs, thinks F1 has to face up to the fact that trying to control budgets through ever-tighter regulations will end in failure.
"In the end I'm as guilty as anybody, because from 2000 onwards, I focused on the regulations." 
"The theory was, if you get the regulations right, you can bring the costs down. We found that wasn't true.
"For example, we tried to reduce the freedom for the engine builders - but it made no difference to the expenditure. Our achievement was simply to reduce the horsepower gained per million dollars spent. That's all.
"Then, following a logical sequence, we froze the engines. All the experts told me 'that's it now'.
"So what did [the engine manufacturers] do? They spent fortunes on the research to the airbox. And I think they found 30 horsepower. It's fascinating when they look at something nobody's bothered with.
"Eventually I realised that it didn't matter what we did with the regulations. We demonstrated that you cannot control costs through regulations. We had to bring in a cost cap."
Mosley's original push to introduce a budget cap in F1 in 2009 faced strong resistance from teams - and he had difficulties taking on the big manufacturers in the wake of the News of the World controversy that overshadowed his final months in charge of the FIA.
COMPETITIVE INCENTIVES
While Mosley understands the reasons why the sport's biggest teams do not want a cost cap imposed, he reckons incentives to boost the competitiveness of smaller outfits may weaken their stance.

"Why not allow a Formula 1 team which is prepared to operate within a very small budget to have greater technical freedom to bring them within a second or so of the frontrunners?" he said.
"To me that is so logical. It lets you demonstrate that somebody sitting in the grandstand will not be able to see the difference between the £50million team and the £500million team."
Mosley also believes that a more equal split of F1's commercial rights income would solve a lot of the teams' financial problems.
"If you ran it rationally, you would give everybody the same money," he said. "You would then arrange the budgets so the cost [of a season] was less than or equal to the amount of money you're giving them.
"You would then say to them [the teams] whatever sponsorship money you get, that's your profit. There's nothing wrong with making a profit, and it would just be a perfectly run thing. But life's not like that is it?"

Team orders expectation surprised Mercedes F1 squad

The Mercedes Formula 1 team says it was surprised by an expectation it would employ team orders to manage the title rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg this season.
F1 2014's dominant team has allowed its drivers to race freely since the start of the season, which has created some tensions within the squad.
Rosberg and Hamilton rowed internally over misuse of engine settings in Bahrain and Spain, before publicly refusing to speak during the Monaco Grand Prix when Rosberg guaranteed himself pole position at Hamilton's expense after going off in the closing stages of qualifying.
Regardless of the flashpoints, Mercedes technical chief Paddy Lowe reckons his team made the right decision to allow its drivers to race freely.
"People at the beginning of this season were surprised we weren't running any team orders, and there was a bit of criticism against us as if we were idiots for not imposing them."
"By Bahrain, it was like 'you're going to have to stop it now, look what they got up to.'
"People even thinking like that is almost an inversion of how you should be, probably generated by that [Michael Schumacher] Ferrari era [in the 2000s, where Schumacher had undisputed number-one status in the team].
"Before that era no one would have ever thought about it.
"Of course you're going to race, that's what you do in Formula 1. It's a natural thing to do."