McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has described his role leading the Woking operation’s rebuild as a “journey”.
Stella took over the team principal position from Andreas Seidl last December and quickly introduced a number of changes within the organisation.
That included a revamp of the technical department, with the three sectional heads now in charge following James Key’s departure.
Stella inherited a team that started the year slowly after its 2023 car failed to meet performance objectives pre-season.
In response, an “aggressive” development plan was put in place, which saw a significant upgrade introduced over the course of the Austrian and British Grands Prix.
Performance since then has sharply improved, with Lando Norris finishing second in two of the last three races, and Oscar Piastri next-best to Max Verstappen in the Belgian GP Sprint.
“I’m enjoying the journey,” Stella told Speedcafe.com.
“I call it the journey because it starts from one point and you want to get to another point.
“I’m enjoying it because it has the element of discovery; discovery in the sense of understanding the team.
“When you talk about the team, we talk about all the people, 700-plus people, the mechanisms that you have at eye level as to how the organisation works; a lower level as to how people interact; what culture do we have in the team?
“Only once you understand all these with a great level of detail you can actually implement the right actions and transform all the team in what we call ‘world championship material’.”
Stella is a veteran of Formula 1, having graduated with a PhD in mechanical engineering from Sapienza University in Rome.
His own F1 journey began with Ferrari, initially as a performance engineer before being promoted to work as part of Michael Schumacher’s crew during the German’s all-conquering period in the early 2000s.
He played a role in Kimi Raikkonen’s world title, too, before working alongside Fernando Alonso at the Scuderia, whom he followed to McLaren in 2015.
At McLaren, Stella has risen through the ranks, working as Seidl’s sporting director until being named team principal last December.
While it would be remiss to credit the upturn solely to Stella, the Italian’s influence has been significant.
Well respected within the paddock, he has deep support within the team – even during the slow start to 2023.
Now things have turned a corner, it’s hoped that is a blip on the radar with new hirings signalling the team’s continued intent.
David Sanchez will join at the start of 2024 from Ferrari to oversee car concept and design, with Rob Marshall coming across from Red Bull to lead the engineering and design department.
They will work alongside Peter Prodromou, who is already in charge of the team’s aerodynamic department.
“And then we have all the infrastructure and technology being close to come to fruition,” Stella added of the wind tunnel and simulator projets.
“So there’s so many elements and ingredients that you have to pull together and ultimately, for me as a team principal, I’m in charge of all this.
“That’s what I like, that’s always done in my life; not in terms of team principal, but ultimately working in Formula 1, understanding what is important in Formula 1; how you have to build things; how you have to interact with people; how do you get the most out of people; what resources do you need and so on.
“So it’s essentially the same job but at a different scale.”
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