De Ferran: Success comes from understanding my weaknesses

De Ferran has an impressive racing CV having won two Indycar titles (2000 and 2001) and the 2003 Indianapolis 500 with Penske Racing where he spent three years. Ironically his biggest successes came while drving Honda-powered race cars!

In 2005, he was appointed sports director of BAR-Honda but resigned in July 2007 after becoming "increasingly uncomfortable" with the team. A year later he ran a couple of LMP Acura ARXs in the American Le Mans Series under the banner of De Ferran Motorsports.

In 2010 he formed De Ferran Dragon Racing, an Indycar outfit that went bust in 2011.

The 50-year-old is now at Silverstone, in his new role as McLaren sporting director, insisting he is ready for the challenge, "It's clear to me that in the team there is a lot of talent."

"Wherever I look I see smart guys. Guys that have been here a long time, those that are younger and newer, and there is certainly a lot of talent and brain power. As Zak said, the key area is to communicate and bring clarity to certain things. Hopefully that will help move forward."

Of his management style, De Ferran said, "The success I had behind the wheel, and any success I had as a business man, came from really trying to understand where my weaknesses were. I was not one to be afraid to look in the mirror and say 'I could have done better here' and 'I could have done better there. What do I need to do to improve?"

"The second thing is I realised very early on in my life that success never comes along [on its own]. You don't have success by yourself. Very few people are able to achieve many things in life by themselves. Most of them are part of a team and so knowing how to put a team together, working together and getting people to feel focused and motivated and really understand where they're going and truly engage [is key]."

"The best ideas come when you're in the middle of the night thinking about all the good stuff for the next day. This is how I personally operate and this is the philosophy I'm bringing to my job. Originally as an advisor to Zak, that's how I was looking at things and now I have an opportunity to do this with more responsibility."

After his first qualifying in the hot seat, De Ferran summed up, "This weekend was a little bit of a step forward in competitiveness. The midfield is tight but we're a little bit closer to our nearest competition, we've just got to keep our heads down."

"The only thing we can control is our own performance so we've just got to keep moving forward," concluded the newest face on the Formula 1 pitlane gantry who landed himself the toughest job on the grid.