Brown calm under Seidl's departure: 'Not a tremendous amount of change'

With Seidl's departure, a new successor was immediately sought within the organisation. That became Andrea Stella, until previously executive director at McLaren. In that position, Stella was very much involved in the development of the car and much less in the work on the track and in the pit wall. So that will now change, although Brown says that is no cause for concern.

"I don't think there will be tremendous amount of change," Brown told GPBlog and others at a press conference. "I will certainly lean in more where Andrea would like my support. I think we will find good ways of working together. I would say we've not gone from 3 to 2 people, we've gone from 850 people to 849 people. I am very comfortable that between Andrea and myself, and any modifications he might make, we've got it well covered."

'I know that's a challenge in Formula One'

Stella himself will still have to work out a bit of how exactly he will shape his new duties. However, he does agree with Brown that McLaren's organisation will not suffer from the recent changes. "It's important to retrain continuity in terms of the way we go racing trackside," Stella stressed at the same press conference. "We have senior leaders at the factory that I will be able to rely on. Some of them will be able to step up a little bit to cover all the tasks required to run the business. At the same time, which is a challenge in modern Formula 1, but I plan to be very present and impactful on the factory side."