SILVERSTONE, U.K. -- McLaren CEO Zak Brown has admitted a return to the front of the grid is still several seasons away after the team started a new rebuilding process on Tuesday.
The first step in that process was racing director Eric Boullier resigning from his post on Wednesday, but Brown believes the whole team needs to be restructured. When it was put to Brown that Red Bull and Mercedes both required several years of rebuilding to make it to the front of the grid from their previous incarnations, he agreed that McLaren was still a long way off fighting for wins.
"This is going to take some time to fix," he said. "I think we are years away. I don't know if that's two or 10, or somewhere inbetween. Probably more like somewhere inbetween, but I don't want to get into predictions.
"I think we have to be very realistic and honest with ourselves, with our fans, with you, to say that this is going to be a journey. I think everyone needs to recognise that. I think we had a good finish in the last race relative to where we started, but we were uncompetitive.
"Not much has changed since last race, so I think everyone needs to not starting having too high expectations, ourself included, at Silverstone, because all that has really happened is five or six days have gone by."
Brown said the management structure at McLaren was not allowing the team to make necessary changes in a short enough time frame.
"The structure is not allowing certain individuals to be as entrepreneurial as I would like them to be," he added. "It has not enabled them to make decisions quickly enough, I think sometimes there is an appropriate time for decision by committee and then I think there are also times when it should be decisions by individuals, and at times our decision making process and the speed in which we make decisions get gridlocked.
"That needs to be change and I think our biggest issue has been structural and organisational. There is great talent that we need to unleash that in the current environment has not been able to blossom. Also, bringing in people from the outside that have other experiences to help contribute to shaping a quicker, faster organisation."