Alonso sets the scene to split McLaren

[Lothar]

Regarding Mike Coughlan's duties: Read pages 30 and 31 in the FIA transcript

http://press.fiacommunications.com/wmsc-transcript-26-07-2007a.pdf

Pat Frye designed the 2007 car and Tim Goss designed the 2008 car. They alternate year over year.

[legion]

I say good riddance to Alonso when he announces (and we all know he will) his departure from McLaren and his return to Renault.

Who will be the "other" driver at McLaren next year? Do they bring up another developement driver or hire from someone else?

[Aerkuld]

Of course. I know what you're saying and that may be true at McLaren, certainly for the puproses of this hearing (if you catch my drift).

But in just the same way, my name isn't on any of the drawings that we do here. The fact that I come up with the ideas, then supervise the designer assigned to my project, before signing off the drawings does tend to indicate something different than the paper trail would suggest. Sure the designer designs the parts and it's his name on the drawing.

[Lothar]

Aerkuld,

Mike Coughlan was not the predominant brain behind either car. That is clear from all of the evidence, how Coughlan was treated before and after the scandal broke, along with the testimony at the hearing. The basic details forwarded by Ron Dennis are easily verifiable due to the high degree of transparency required of the teams by the FIA. RD has no reason to grossly mis-state Coughlan's role in the design and development process, as this would easily be discovered.

[Aerkuld]

Again, I know what your saying and I'm not totally disagreeing with you. Maybe he wasn't the predominat brain, but I bet his knowledge and experience was tapped into, or his opinion was sought by Frye and Goss on more than one occasion. As for the transparency, again what paper trail shows and how the process actually works may, or may not be directly correlated. According to the paperwork here it would appear that I have very little influence over the design whereas the reality is somewhat different.
I don't think that Ron deliberately mis-stated the process if he mis-stated it at all, just don't loose sight of what McLaren were trying to show in that instance - that Coughlan didn't use Ferrari's ideas on McLaren's cars. All I'm suggesting is that somebody in Coughlan's position isn't paid to be a drawing office manager. Paper trails and org charts can show so much of how things work in theory, but the only people that are going to know for sure are the people that work in McLaren's design office.

[MFAFF]

Lothar...

Thanks for that but delve a little deeper...

From the Vodafone Mercedes McLaren website today....

Mike Coughlan
Chief Designer, McLaren Racing
Mike Coughlan, born 17th February 1959, gained a degree in mechanical engineering from Brunel University in 1981. Mike’s first position within motorsport was with racing car manufacturers, Tiga. After five years he moved to Lotus, with the Type 95 being the first car Mike was involved in. In 1990 Mike joined the Benetton Formula One team where he......

...In August 2002, Mike joined McLaren Racing as Chief Designer,...

The title Chief Designer is precisely that. He will set the basic design parameters and goals to achieve. He will effectively challenge his Engineering team to achieve those goals. He will not tell them how to do it down to the last detail. That is the role of:-

Tim Goss
Chief Engineer MP4-23, McLaren Racing

....Tim's current role is Chief Engineer MP4-23 following on from his role these past two years as Chief Engineer MP4-21. He will now take on responsibility for the specification and development of the 2008 race car.

You are correct that Pat Fry and Tim Goss take the lead on alternate years cars..so that they can concentrate on one design not two.

The person who does sign off cars and components for production is Neil Oatley:-

Neil Oatley
Design and Development Director, McLaren Racing
Neil Oatley graduated with an automotive engineering degree
......In 1988 Neil was promoted to Chief Designer, in charge of the design group for the following years’ challenger, the MP4/5. Neil's current role as Design and Development Director has him overseeing the car specification and design programme, defining the specification for each race and supervising the build and approval processes for each new component.


The relationship of the Chief Designer to Chief Engineer is a great playground. One sets the targets, the other works out how to get there.

So to say that the Chief Designer has no influence is to misunderstand the interaction between the two.

MC is a car designer first and foremost. He knows how to do Tim Goss's job. What he has done is set targets for Tim to achieve. How exactly that is done is for Tim and his team of engineers to work out in detail. MC could do it but its not his job.

A little for instance. The 'Architect' responsible for the McLaren Technology Centre is Lord Norman Foster. He is the name most attributed to the project. Yet he did not design everything there. He set the basic design vision with RD and they then challenged his team to deliver it.

His studio designed it... with a Partner of the Practice called David Nelson in overall guidance of the project. His role is analogous to MC's role. DN was responsible for taking that vision, understanding it, expanding and refining it into a building, both in functional and aesthetic terms, of influencing the vision as his team worked thro the details, of adding his own experience and skill to the project and crafting the design. He had a Project Director working on it who was responsible day to day for the project, both in leading the design team, managing the team and in pushing forward the design. This person was the 'Tim Goss' of the team. In addition this Project Director had other Project Directors responsible for different aspects of the project.

Yet the overall vision was set by NF and developed by DN...with others responsible for the detail. If however you ask 'who designed' it then NF's name is mentionned or within the industry, DN's name as it is known that he was responsible for the design on a week by week basis. NF set the vision, with RD and they let the team run with it, with reviews being held regularly to make sure the vision was being respected of it there was reason to evolve that vision to take into account new ideas.

A similar model is applicable to the design of the car. RD wants a car to win. So his Directors set about delivering that vision. Each focuses on their areas of responsibility, from the running of the team and support to the design of the car itself. MC has responsibility for the car design. Not every idea within it is his, yet the overall responsiblity lies with him, hence his title.

So whilst the transcript serves it own purpose, as does the hearing itself, we can also look to the actual process of how the car is designed to give us a clearer picture of the relative roles and influences of individuals within the design team.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by legion

I say good riddance to Alonso when he announces (and we all know he will) his departure from McLaren and his return to Renault.

Who will be the "other" driver at McLaren next year? Do they bring up another developement driver or hire from someone else?

Well, it sure will not be Pedro de la Rosa after the way he was involved in this scandal!

[Lothar]

Originally Posted by MFAFF

A little for instance. The 'Architect' responsible for the McLaren Technology Centre is Lord Norman Foster. He is the name most attributed to the project. Yet he did not design everything there. He set the basic design vision with RD and they then challenged his team to deliver it.

His studio designed it... with a Partner of the Practice called David Nelson in overall guidance of the project. His role is analogous to MC's role. DN was responsible for taking that vision, understanding it, expanding and refining it into a building, both in functional and aesthetic terms, of influencing the vision as his team worked thro the details, of adding his own experience and skill to the project and crafting the design. He had a Project Director working on it who was responsible day to day for the project, both in leading the design team, managing the team and in pushing forward the design. This person was the 'Tim Goss' of the team. In addition this Project Director had other Project Directors responsible for different aspects of the project.

Thanks for the interesting info. However, I don't agree that the Norman Foster example is analogous to the McLaren team designing a car.

I certainly don't dispute what was on the McLaren website. But the point I was making was that Mike Coughlan being released by the team will be detrimental to neither the remaining development of the '07 car, nor the development of '08 car. I don't believe that MC was of such great importance in the overall scheme of things.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by legion

Who will be the "other" driver at McLaren next year? Do they bring up another development driver or hire from someone else?

Now that is the big question... what drivers are going to be free agents next year?

[frogger]

Although I'm still waiting for Ron Dennis to confide in me, I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that PDR gets axed after this season ends, and FA gets demoted (to tester)/benched for part/all of next season.

[MFAFF]

Lothar,

Please believe me when I say the NF example is analogous to the way McLaren work.

The success of that project was not only down to the driving force of both RD and NF, but also an appreciation of the design process delivering results, on both sides. I was fortunate to spend the best part of a decade at Fosters and have since been fortunate enough to work with a then member of the McLaren Team in another context since and gained their view of the project. That's why I though the example was suitable. It may not be exact and things may have changed since then.

I agree that for the 2007 car his departure will be countered. However for the 2008 car it will be more difficult, not impossible for sure, merely more difficult and in this day and age any slight slip in the rate of development is severely punished. This applies doubly if they lose FA as well. Neither PDLR or Gary are going to be able to take up the slack. Perhaps LH will, but the signs so far in his career are not unequivocal in this area, unlike say Senna or MS at similar stages.

I doubt that MCL would fall down the pack but Ferrari and BMW are not going to let up and can easily up the ante to make next season very interesting.

[Aerkuld]

Hey MFAFF - you're closer to the action there so you may know more, but I don't recall positive confirmation that Coughlan has permanently departed from the team. I did hear he had taken an interest in gardening, but my understanding is that it is/was a temporary measure. Can you clear that one up?

[MFAFF]

Gardening is popular, but I think his interest may evolve into Zen landscapes as I would imagine the Machiavellian elements would pressure the National Socialist decendants to examine all Kiwi team products in 2008 with the zeal of a Third Reich security service.

However the brightness of the rising sun may blind the Modenese and render them impotent to curb the tide of initial success. But beware of long game played by the Razor man in his quest for total domination.

[Aerkuld]

It took a few seconds,`but i think I catch your drift.

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by MFAFF

Gardening is popular, but I think his interest may evolve into Zen landscapes as I would imagine the Machiavellian elements would pressure the National Socialist decendants to examine all Kiwi team products in 2008 with the zeal of a Third Reich security service.

However the brightness of the rising sun may blind the Modenese and render them impotent to curb the tide of initial success. But beware of long game played by the Razor man in his quest for total domination.

Very nice!

[David]

I think this is much worse than the Prost/Senna era. I knew Alonso had issues when he wouldn't visit Spain because there were too many fans.

I forget which driver said it, (I think it was NASCAR) but I think more drivers need to believe it: "we race for free, the money is for the sponsorship duties" Or something like that.

[FastCarFan]

Someone asked who would replace Alonso at McLaren next year if he leaves. I would like to see Nico Rosberg get the seat. While he may not be available contractually, $ talks, & Ron Dennis will have a lot of it to play around with if someone buys out Alonso's contract. Heck, he has enough $ without any Alonso contract buy-out $.

I think Rosberg has done very well given the car he has. It would be interesting to see how good he is in a truly competitive car.

I will be an interesting silly season.

[Aerkuld]

I still think Heidfeld would get my vote. As you say, when it comes to McLaren $$ there isn't realy anyone who isn't on the market.

[rvanderpyl]

Well there are some interesting openings.

How about:

Rosberg to Toyota for a free supply of engines. Trulli in for one more year then bring in Nakajima

Alonso back to Renault for a big chunk of Cash

Kovalenein to Williams (Alonso won't want him on the same team, to much possibility of another Hamilton)

Drop Fisi and bring in Luizi to save some money to pay Alonso's salary and buyout, Luizi no threat to Alonso, but in a decent car might be able to bring in some points for the team.

Button to McLaren ( an all England Team, marketing magic) Paid for with the Renault cash

Honda brings back Sato

Super Aguri grabs Sakon for the extra cash and to keep a Japanese Driver

Spyker (Kingfisher?) brings back Nathrain

[Lothar]

MFAFF,

I have heard that one source of Coughlan's unhappiness was the application of matrix management at McLaren. I have worked under a matrix org and understand some of the shortcomings. However, matrix management would support my contention that the loss of Coughlan would have minimal impact on the outcome of their design and development efforts. In fact, the loss of any one individual would have lesser consequences in a matrix compared to a very hierarchical structure.

Matrix does not require "vision" to be highly concentrated at the very top of the organization. I think this point is underscored by the success that continued in the aftermath of Adrian Newey's departure. So much emphasis was placed on the aero influence that Newey had. Yet, McLaren continued to develop unique aerodynamics well after Newey ceased contributing.

Regarding the paper trail, why would the paper trail hide the real input from engineers when no one knew there was any reason to scrutinize the paper trail? Virtually no one but a very few very late in the game had any idea that the degree to which MC contributed would become an issue.