A week after hinting at a headline grabbing recruitment, McLaren has confirmed that it has lured Red Bull's Head of Aerodynamics, Peter Prodromou, back to Woking.

The Englishman, who joined Red Bull in 2007, a year after the recruitment of Adrian Newey, previously spent fifteen years with the Woking team, as CFD analyst, Project Engineer in the aerodynamics department and Head of Aerodynamic Design, before being appoiinted Chief Aerodynamicist in 2005. In 2007 he moved to Milton Keynes in the same capacity.

"He's signed a contract with us," Martin Whitmarsh told reporters at Suzuka, though he was unable to say when Prodromou will take up his post.

Speaking later, the Woking outfit's managing director Jonathan Neale hinted that the recruitment of Prodromou (pictured with Sebastian Vettel at Barcelona in 2011) is part of a major drive aimed at putting the team - facing its first winless season since 2006 - back at the front of the grid.

"It is not a one-off thing we are doing, as we have made some moves during the course of this year," he said. "There are some other things we are doing to strengthen our team. It is a series of moves as we head towards 2015 with Honda to make sure this team stays at the forefront of F1 and is set for winning ways."

Speaking at the post-qualifying press conference, pole-man Mark Webber and teammate Sebastian Vettel spoke highly of Prodromou.

"Peter's a great guy, obviously a huge amount of experience," said Webber. "Always enjoyed working with him. Obviously he's an integral part of the team and did a good job, (he's) been there a long time.

"It's the first I'm aware of how formal you're talking about it," he admitted, "but these things happen in Formula One."

"I only heard of it just now," added Vettel. "As Mark touched on, he's obviously been a very, very strong character in the background responsible for a lot of good stuff that has happened to us over the last couple of years. For sure I hope he stays with us but I don't know. I only just heard, when I got out of the car."

Christian Horner was giving little away. "We've enjoyed a long relationship with Peter and he's a valuable member of the team," he told Sky F1. "There's still quite a duration left on his contract... we won't force him to stay, and it's his choice to leave at the end of his contract, but we are quite some way off that."

It's understood Prodromou's contract with Red Bull runs until the end of 2014, which means an awful lot of gardening.