McLaren "never at risk" of not being on the Formula 1 grid

McLaren

McLaren "never at risk" of not being on the Formula 1 grid

The company has secured a bank loan to help with its short- and mid-term future

Ian Parkes

Tuesday 30 June 2020 12:37 Updated: 12:52

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl has revealed there was "never a doubt" the marque would not be on the Formula 1 grid despite its recent financial crisis.

On Monday [June 29], it was confirmed McLaren Holdings Ltd had secured a £150million loan from the National Bank of Bahrain that eases the company's financial position in the short- and mid-term, allowing it to continue with its core activities and pursue additional funding options.

Despite what appeared to be a grave situation for McLaren, with 1,200 redundancies from a 4,000-strong workforce also announced, Seidl, speaking during an invited media conference call, with GPFans included, said: "I've been asked if I was worried a lot about the financial situation at McLaren.

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"Of course, it was a tough period, but at the same time I'm in permanent exchange with Zak [Brown, CEO] so I knew what was ongoing on the financial side.

"In the end Paul Walsh, our chairman, together with the shareholders, was simply looking for the best possible option in terms of funding, or finding the right funding, to not only get us through this crisis, but also to put us in the best possible position to be competitive in the future, and so I'm very happy with the news from yesterday."

Seidl added: "With Zak and I having detailed knowledge of what was going on, we were not at risk of not being able to continue. There was never a doubt of McLaren not being on the grid next year."

Seidl has confirmed updates to the car will be done on a regular basis throughout the course of the season, which begins in Austria this weekend, while plans for the integration of the Mercedes power unit for next season are also unaffected.

Seidl said: "The financial challenges we were in, and the measures we took early on with the pay cuts, putting staff on furlough, which was in parallel with the shutdown, to be honest, didn't really affect our plans for this year or next year.

"We are on course with the plan we set out in the winter. We are planning to bring updates regularly from Austria onwards on the car, and at the same time, we are flat out getting next year's car ready, with the biggest topic being the integration of the Mercedes power unit.

"At the beginning of this crisis we had to put on hold all the infrastructure projects we were working on, and even now, with not knowing what the income will look like this year, we are still cautious there, and we have to wait until the green light there again.

"As you can imagine I'm pushing hard to get the infrastructure measures in place again, and as quickly as possible, and we all know this will be key on our journey back to the front because we have a deficit there compared to the top teams.

"With Zak, I am quite optimistic that once we are through this crisis we can get back on track with our infrastructure as well."

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