McLaren chief Eric Boullier says the team has planned “exciting changes” for its MCL32, the car which will be raced by Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne in Formula 1 this season.
McLaren has not taken a win since 2012, while its reunion with Honda has so far delivered a high of sixth in the constructors’ championship, which it achieved last season.
Boullier, explaining a sequence of personnel changes within the Woking team over the winter, commented that the tweaks also extend to the squad’s new machinery, amid rumours of a revised livery.
“As I say, there will always be changes, and that’s the way it always should be,” he explained to the McLaren website.
“As you know, a Formula 1 car itself never stays the same from one race to the next.
“Across the businesses, in fact, we’re triggering other changes – and we’ve got some exciting changes planned for our new car, the MCL32.
“But we want those to be kept secret until we show it to the world on February 24.”
McLaren has undergone a raft of personnel shifts across the winter, with Ron Dennis having been ousted as chairman and Jost Capito vacating his role as CEO.
Boullier also confirmed that Paul James will replace Williams-bound Dave Redding as team manager, while Kari Lammenranta will become the new chief mechanic.
Andrea Stella, currently occupying a senior role within race engineering, will also expand his duties to look after McLaren's sporting relationship with the FIA across the course of a race weekend.
“Dave was offered an opportunity with another team, and we didn’t want to stand in his way,” Boullier said of Redding.
“We’ve been discussing this together for some time; it’s not a sudden decision, and we’re happy for him.
“Besides, we had the option of waiting until the middle of the year before replacing him, but we feel that we’ve got a really strong group of people who are ready to step up and take on new responsibilities – which is exciting.
“Consequently, Dave will be spending the next few weeks handing over the team manager role to his successor, Paul James, before finishing off his McLaren career with a factory-based role ahead of his leaving us in the middle of the year.
"Paul’s appointment has been received fantastically well throughout the entire organisation, because he’s a McLaren man through and through, and we all know he’ll do an excellent job. As team manager, he really will be called upon to manage the team.
"He’ll be a strong leader, but he’ll be able to jump in whenever and wherever is required."
