Zak Brown praises Andrea Stella for leadership

Red Bull has a competitor – and it’s called McLaren. The Papayas’ MCL38 is at least equal to the RB20. The only thing that is still lacking is the strategy. According to McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, the reason for the positive change in the Formula 1 team since the start of the 2023 season is team boss Andrea Stella. After Andreas Seidl’s departure, the Italian took over the helm – and the Papayas developed into a Formula 1 power.

Brown answers key to McLaren’s rise: Andrea Stella

Andrea Stella is a McLaren veteran. The Italian has been working in Woking since 2015. At that time, he followed Fernando Alonso to McLaren. Stella was Alonso’s race engineer during his Ferrari days. At McLaren, he became head of racing operations before being promoted to performance director in 2018 and executive director in 2019. In December 2022, he took over the position of team boss from Andreas Seidl. The former team boss moved to Sauber to tackle the Audi project there.

And despite a bumpy start in 2023, performance soon turned in Stella’s favor. With the first part of a major, three-part update package in Austria, McLaren caught up with Mercedes and Ferrari. The Papayas are now Red Bull’s first opponent.

“It’s obviously a team effort, but Andrea is the one who has led the changes,” said Zak Brown. “He’s done an incredible job. Of course, he doesn’t design the car, so I don’t want to exclude the other thousand employees. But his leadership has been the biggest change we’ve seen from where we were in early 2023 to now,” the CEO reports.

Brown: Atmosphere on the pit wall is the same, whether P1 or P10

“Of course Rob Marshall and the others are doing a great job, but they are doing it under Andreas’ leadership,” Brown explains. Nevertheless, McLaren is not without its mistakes. The last few races proved that. In Great Britain, the team even threw away two possible chances of victory through wrong strategy decisions. Both with Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. But Stella promptly admitted these mistakes after the race.

Crash between Lando Norris (McLaren) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
Not only the team, but also the drivers made mistakes, Photo: LAT Images

“When I’m on the pit wall, the mood under Andrea is always the same. You wouldn’t be able to guess whether we’re fighting for tenth place or the win. That’s exactly what you want to see,” said Brown.

Stella has laid the first major foundation stone. McLaren has a car with which race wins, if not even a world championship victory, seem possible. The mood on the pit wall and in the team also seems to be right. Now the strategy and the drivers have to follow suit. Then winning could possibly be “business as usual”, as Zak Brown describes the mood on the pit wall.

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