mwillems wrote: ↑08 Feb 2024, 22:42
Seidl helped bring us forward to a good season where we had a hard fought win for fourth, but two subsequent lacklustre seasons saw us struggling. Seidl was likeable and it was James Key getting the flack from the fans. And rightly so. Both were a bit conservative. Stella took over and within 5 months we were the regular second fastest team. Undoubtedly it is the talent of the whole team that has brought us here, but equally undoubtedly it is Stella who has unlocked that talent.
It is worth remembering that Stella advised Zak to move to this new structure at Magny Cours in 22 and it is then that James Key's fate was being sealed, according to Zak, as in season development was not find anywhere near the time they needed. Seidl was granted permission to leave a little after that and given that Zak was already talking to Stella, you'd thing that Zak had one eye on these changes at this point. And who would oversee them.
Still a long way to go, but Stella has done in one year more than any Mclaren TP has been able to do in over a decade and has barely put a foot wrong.
Truly impressive, I tend to hang on his every word which defies the usual TP blather or combative talk from Toto and Horner. I'm curious about the nature and sequence of the Seidl/Key dismantling. I was full of admiration, at least for Seidl, through to the almost win at Sochi in 2021, but was dismayed by the steepness of the decline through to the end of that season. Of course 2022 was the new formula and the first false start season - the car simply wasn't shaken down and the brakes were wooden. Then it was same again a year later but the Key approach to sidelining other voices had already been rumbled, at least as early as November 2022.
Was Seidl actually quietly elbowed aside to make way for a more constructive management structure due to 18 months of stagnation? Magny Cours in July was said by Zak to be a turning point so, like many things F1, the hatching period is always much longer than we tend to think. The turning of fortunes for McLaren probably did begin in July 2022 and not bear any outwardly noticeable rewards until the weekends of Austria and Silverstone eleven months later. So most of the faithful are probably much more excited about the Stella regime than at any time in it's predecessor's time, as good as the 1-2 at Monza felt.
