McLaren’s head of racing engineering to step down
While McLaren has just won the constructors' championship at the expense of Ferrari and Red Bull, the British team has just announced some bad news. Hiroshi Imai, a long-standing McLaren engineer, will be leaving the team shortly.
The celebration will not be complete at McLaren. While the Woking team won its first constructors’ title since 1998 after a formidable 2024 season, with six victories, it has also received bad news: Hiroshi Imai, a prominent member of the team, will leave McLaren after 15 years of collaboration to return to Japan.
Hiroshi Imai: an important member of McLaren
Arriving in May 2009 after spending 18 years at Bridgestone as head of tire development, Imai was promoted to chief race engineer in 2017 before becoming director of engineering four years later. A tire expert, he was a significant and popular figure at McLaren, even being referred to as a « god » by Lando Norris during a live session on Twitch. It’s a severe blow for a team that has just finished first in the team standings and won the last Grand Prix of the season thanks to Lando Norris.
Andrea Stella, McLaren’s director, wanted to pay tribute to the Japanese engineer, who was one of his closest collaborators since the Italian’s arrival at the team in 2015 and who greatly contributed to the recent success of the team led by Zak Brown.
A very talented engineer
« Hiroshi has been with McLaren for a long time. He has been a fundamental contributor to the team’s success over the years. But for me, in particular, since I joined McLaren in 2015, Hiroshi has always been one of my closest collaborators, holding various positions: chief race engineer, director of race engineering, and most recently, director of tires and brakes. »
For Fernando Alonso’s former engineer, Hiroshi Imai was essential in the team, with precise knowledge of the tires and accuracy in his work that contributed to McLaren’s upswing in performance over the past two years.
« At the same time, he has always played a key role in our track operations. He brought immense knowledge and expertise on tires, brakes, and operational standards. He is a person of great integrity and remarkable calm, highly appreciated by everyone. But, at the same time, he has always been a point of reference for anyone who needed advice or an informed opinion, and they knew they could count on Hiroshi. There is an aspect of Hiroshi that we all love: when it was time to race, the ‘Samurai’ in him emerged, and he became one of the toughest competitors, yet always with great respect and impeccable style. »
A Well-Deserved Tribute
Andrea Stella then praised the Japanese for all the work he has done and offered him support for the rest of his career, as he chose to leave for Japan rather than join a rival team. We are all very grateful to Hiroshi for what he has brought to McLaren. He will always be part of the family, and I am delighted that he won the world championship in his last year with McLaren, as he will always be able to say he is a world champion for the rest of his life. We wish Hiroshi all the best, and I am sure we will have other opportunities to see him again in the future.
Despite this departure, McLaren still has a very strong team, especially since it has recently recruited former Red Bull executives, such as Rob Marshall or, more recently, Will Courtenay, head of strategy at Red Bull, who will become, starting in 2026, the new sporting director of the team founded by Bruce McLaren.
