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Capito needs to analyse McLaren changes - Boullier

Eric Boullier says new McLaren CEO Jost Capito needs to analyse the changes he has implemented at the team since the start of 2015.

It was announced back in January that the Volkswagen motorsport director would be joining McLaren as CEO, and Capito is set to start work at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.

Boullier joined the team from Lotus at the start of 2014 in the role of racing director, and he told F1i he and acting CEO Jonathan Neale have recently changed both the structure and mentality within McLaren which Capito will need to understand.

Asked what Capito will need to do to get up to speed, Boullier replied: “Spend some time in the factory because obviously his role is the CEO.

“So a CEO has also the responsibility of the strategy, the finance, production, manufacturing, human resources… I think he just needs to spend some time and look at what is McLaren and also what McLaren became in the last two years because Jonathan and I have changed a lot of things.”

And Boullier sees the appointment as a positive sign as to the size of McLaren and its ability to bring in big names to fill key roles at the team despite its recent poor on-track performance.

“To be honest, why not [hire externally]? I think we are not there yet and we need to prepare for the future, definitely. He has got different experience which I think will be good for the benefit of McLaren.”

Chris Medland's 2016 Belgian Grand Prix preview

How Eric Boullier keeps McLaren on its toes

Pascal Wehrlein interview: The rookie who wants to lead

F1i Classic - Mayhem, monsoon and the mother of all Belgian Grand Prix

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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