Although Red Bull's Max Verstappen cruised to yet another win this season at the British Grand Prix - his sixth in a row - McLaren grabbed most headlines as they demonstrated signs of resurgence, with Lando Norris handing the Woking Squad its first podium finish of the 2023 campaign. What contributed to McLaren's progress were a complete car overhaul and technical structure changes initiated by McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella. This led the team to claim a podium and a remarkable fourth-place finish at their home track. Stella steered the team past their struggles this season, following a poor start that left the Woking-based racing team at the bottom of the constructors' championship.
In Brown's opinion, Andrea Stella was the man responsible for McLaren's return to the podium. Demonstrating clarity and decisiveness, the team principal made some technical structure changes early in his tenure, so required to meet the team's goal of returning to the front of the grid. This includes moving away from a single executive technical director to an F1 technical executive team, consisting of three divisions each managed by a technical director.
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Additionally, McLaren also announced the departure of James Key - Former McLaren Technical Director - as part of an engineering reshuffle. Part of this reshuffle will soon welcome Rob Marshall to the Formula 1 team as its Technical Director - a change Zak Brown felt was needed 'for some time'.
Andrea Stella: A Brief Introduction
In December 2022, the British manufacturer McLaren appointed Andrea Stella as the Formula 1 team principal. Stella replaced Andreas Seidl, who left his position as McLaren team principal to become the Chief Executive Officer of the Sauber Group and has been tasked with overseeing Audi's entry into Formula 1 in 2026. Stella's promotion from Executive Director of Racing to Team Principal came ahead of the 2023 F1 season.
The Italian has more than two decades of motorsports history, starting his career with Ferrari as Performance Engineer (2002-08) and then as Race Engineer (2009-15). Following this, he joined McLaren as the Head of Race Operations in 2015, and since then, he has been an integral part of the racing team, stepping up into the position of Performance Director in 2018 and Executive Director of Racing in 2019. Moreover, the 51-year-old has a degree in Aerospace Engineering and holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. Stella's impressive resume includes 4 titles and 58 wins, earned during his time in the Ferrari race team.
McLaren's Remarkable British GP Resurgence: What Zak Brown Said of Andrea Stella?
While speaking to the media gathering after the 2023 British GP, Team Chief praised Stella's transformation of McLaren's technical department before the arrival of significant signings (such as Rob Marshall) in the team. Zak Brown said, "This guy is awesome. The way he inherited what we had at the start of the year, recognised the challenges that we had, put in a technical restructure, and promoted people from within".
"We’ve made some big hires that are joining, but they haven’t joined yet, so this is still the work of all the men and women under Andrea’s leadership".
"They put their head down, [Technical Director, Aerodynamics] Peter Prodromou in the aero department, [Deputy Technical Director, Engineering & Design] Neil Houldey, Andrea, [Chief Operating Officer] Piers Thynne back at the factory – everyone’s done an awesome job."
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