Brown: Seidl ensures no distractions at McLaren

McLaren CEO Zak Brown says that Andreas Seidl was hired to ensure that there were no distractions at its Formula 1 team.

Seidl will head proceedings at the McLaren F1 team this year, but will not start his role until May. Seidl previously worked at the head of Porsche's World Endurance Championship team. The German has previous experience in F1, having worked with BMW from 2000 to 2009.

And as McLaren looks to bounce back from a tough 2018 campaign, Brown says that Seidl will play a crucial role in its development going forward.

"Andreas has an excellent history not only with Porsche but before that working with Sauber and Williams on the BMW side," the American said. "So he’s someone who’s been around racing a long time has a great pedigree. When we started going through our changes last year we recognised ultimately you need someone waking up every day solely focused on Formula 1.

"My role is to look after McLaren Racing and our various racing activities of which Formula 1 is the most important, and then I brought on Gil [in the] middle of the year to assist me with those global efforts until we had identified – and ultimately they have yet to start – people like James Key and Andreas. We all had to jump in and kind of fill that gap until they arrive.

"So what I’m looking is for Andreas to lead the team. I think we have a great group. I think the team’s stronger than any one individual. But he, James Key along with the existing organisation will take it forward and Gil and I will obviously play our role in Formula 1 while also kind of fulfilling the ambition of our shareholders in the various activities.

"Obviously we’re doing the Indy 500, we’re involved in cycling, as has been reported we’re looking at sports cars and so we needed to make sure before we take on any other activities that we have all of the right resources dedicated to Formula 1 because what we won’t do is have any distractions to our Formula 1 team."