After joining McLaren in 2016 and becoming the CEO of the team in 2018, Zak Brown has led a commendable transition in the team’s fortunes. He reflected on the journey of the Woking team — which had been a perennial underachiever since 2013 — to become a championship contender once again.
As he has done several times in the recent past, Brown praised Andrea Stella for doing a stellar job as the team principal. However, he recalled the time when he first offered the role to Stella and he rejected it.
During a conversation on the BBC’s F1: Chequered Flag podcast, Brown was asked when he first identified Stella as the team principal and why it took so long to make that decision considering the Italian had been with the team for several years. To this, Brown responded,
“Truth be known, I offered it to him the first time around and he declined it… So I actually spoke with him about it, before we brought on the other team principal and he felt he wasn’t ready. So the second time around, I think he knew me better, knew the team better even though he’d been here a while.”
Brown also mentioned how Stella was a little hesitant even the second time around and only took over the role from Andreas Seidl once he felt he was ready for the job.
Seidl’s departure at the end of 2022, when the team was struggling came as a blessing in disguise. McLaren was able to turn around its fortune with the very first major upgrade package under Stella’s leadership.
Since then, the Woking team hasn’t looked back and their development program has served as the bedrock in becoming a consistent frontrunner again. Stella‘s leadership of a sorted organizational structure has been the foundation of this turnaround.
Brown blames previous leaders for not unlocking the team’s full potential
Brown also elaborated on what led to the team’s turnaround considering that it’s not common to see an F1 team go from the bottom to the top of the grid so quickly. In response, Brown again praised Stella for his style of leadership and equally slammed the previous leaders for not getting the most out of the team.
The American emphasized that he only changed three out of the 1000 or so people who work at McLaren but those three people, especially Stella, have been able to unlock the talent the team always had.
“I think we weren’t able to let the talent we have in here flourish and let them do their thing and so Andrea communicates very well, he listens very well, he’s very hardworking, he’s very technical, he leads by example, all the traits you’d want from a great leader,” Brown remarked.
With the second half of the season underway, McLaren sits just 42 points behind Red Bull in the standings. And with two incredible drivers at their disposal relative to just Max Verstappen doing the bulk of scoring at Red Bull, McLaren could easily catch up and beat their rivals by the end of the season.
