Martin Brundle says the recent loss of McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl will be bad news for the organisation going forward.
Earlier this week, McLaren announced that Seidl had departed the squad after four seasons overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Woking-based outfit.
Seidl has taken on the role of the Sauber Group CEO ahead of Audi’s F1 entry in 2026.
McLaren has been on a path of recovery after a difficult handful of years in the turbo-hybrid era, and has taken a handful of podiums (including a race win) since Seidl’s arrival.
But Brundle says that Seidl’s departure will be disruptive to McLaren’s growth.
“There’s no doubt about it, losing Seidl is bad news for McLaren going forward,” Brundle told Sky Sports.
“He’s had a long-term relationship with the Volkswagen group with Porsche so I can understand what he’s done and I can understand why McLaren wanted to expedite that.
“But this is not what they needed.”
McLaren enters the 2023 season with a revised driver line-up, as rookie Oscar Piastri has joined in place of Daniel Ricciardo.
Brundle says that Piastri, as well as team-mate Lando Norris, will be disappointed by Seidl’s exit.
“The big thing for McLaren is their new wind tunnel in 2024,” Brundle said.
“So Lando will be looking at it thinking, ‘why has Andreas jumped ship? What has Andreas seen at Audi, that he much prefers to McLaren?’
“Oscar will be disappointed as well because he would have done all the discussions, all the imaginations, with Andreas, for Oscar to join and Lando to stay.
“Lando is very close to Zak [Brown, CEO] and he is doing a great job there, there’s a good structure at McLaren. I don’t panic in the slightest for them, but you can’t read this as good news.”
My suspicion is that the surprisingly easy and benign departure of Andreas to Sauber, maybe be linked to a secret option for McLaren to use Audi engines for 2026.
More like VW buying McLaren, which decreases in value with each passing day.