Rob Marshall to Take on Technical Director Role at McLaren in 2024
McLaren Hires Key Designer from Rival Team to Boost Formula 1 Fortunes
In a bid to turn around their fortunes in the world of Formula 1, McLaren secures senior designer Rob Marshall from rival team Red Bull. This comes as part of an ongoing restructure aimed at putting the team back on track and winning races again.
Rob Marshall has been one of the key members of Red Bull’s design team for more than 17 years, most recently serving as chief engineering officer. Andrea Stella, McLaren’s Team Principal, describes securing his signature as a “fundamental step towards aiding our journey back to winning ways.”
The 55-year-old will join McLaren at the start of 2024 with the title ‘Technical Director for Engineering and Design’. Alongside him are Peter Prodromou responsible for aerodynamics and former Ferrari designer David Sanchez who will work on car concept and performance. All three designers will report into Stella.
This move is part of an ambitious strategy by McLaren aimed at speeding up their journey back to being competitive after making significant progress through 2019-21 following a low point in 2018 where they had one of the slowest cars on the grid.
Their recent progress stalled last year but they have dropped further behind this season leading Stella and Zak Brown – CEO of McLaren Racing – to make major changes including replacing technical director James Key back in March.
The recruitment of Rob Marshall is a major coup for the team, as it will bring with him insight into Red Bull’s continuing ability to produce one of the fastest cars in F1. The rival team has dominated since new technical rules were introduced at the start of last season.
McLaren are also investing heavily in infrastructure including their new wind tunnel which comes on stream this year and a new simulator set to be launched soon. Although questioned by some within F1, Stella insists that having three parallel technical directors reporting into him will work for McLaren.