In an official statement, McLaren said, "Regrettably, we have not been able to find common ground with Jost with regard to what is and will be needed to make the team successful again. As a result, we have agreed that he will leave McLaren Racing and will now consider other opportunities. We wish him success in his future endeavours."
Ron Dennis was ousted from McLaren F1 team late last year
Having been signed in January last year, Jost Capito did not work with McLaren until September 2016 due to his prior commitments. His first official race with McLaren was the Italian Grand Prix. The 58-year-old was one of the regulars in the team garage as well. Capito left his previous position as the head of Volkswagen Motorsport to join McLaren working alongside bosses Eric Boullier and Jonathan Neale, and was involved in the team's day-to-day management.
Capito was appointed by former team principal Ron Dennis, who was ousted by shareholders over a dispute late last year.
A McLaren spokesman added that Capito "had a a strong commitment to bringing success back to McLaren. He wanted to build again a winning team and fully focus on making the McLaren F1 car competitive, with the aim of winning World Championships in coming years."
A born racer, Jost Capito has had an illustrious racing career before moving to the management aspect of racing. As a young racer, he successfully competed in the Paris-Dakar Rally in the 1980s, winning the truck category in 1985. By the late '80s, he had migrated to a managerial role, working with some of the world's biggest manufacturers, including Porsche and Ford, and also had a stint in Formula 1 with Sauber and Ford. Prior to McLaren, the German champion was Volkswagen's motorsport director, and oversaw the success of the team in World Rally Championship with three consecutive titles.
Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne will be driving this season for McLaren
It will now be interesting to see how McLaren faires with Brown tkaing charge of the team. For the 2017 season, Fernando Alonso and rookie Stoffel Vandoorne will be taking Honda powered McLaren race cars to the track. The new season is all set to start next month in Australia on 26th March.
