McLaren has seemingly outdone their own expectations to emerge as the champions in 2024. The Woking outfit had a plan that they would start fighting for championships in 2025. So, this season’s charge for both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles was a surprise indeed. A major credit for this uptick goes to their team principal, Andrea Stella.
Since Stella has taken over the reins at McLaren, their technical and operational efficiency has improved by leaps and bounds. Moreover, he has instilled a culture in the team that is worthy of appreciation and important for building a strong, cohesive team.
From rock bottom… to champions of the world! ⬆️
The Papaya rise #F1 @McLarenF1 pic.twitter.com/pwgZcECDdA
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 9, 2024
McLaren’s Racing Director, Randy Singh heaped praises on Stella for bringing a “no-blame” culture to the team, giving everyone their space to make mistakes and improve. On the Sky Sports F1 podcast, Randy recalled one instance where he made an error in judging a red flag situation in a race last year, and it cost them.
“Andrea said this is going to be a red flag and I thought it was going to be a safety car and I did what I thought was right for the safety car, it turned into a red flag, didn’t work out for us, as a result,” he stated.
However, Stella did not blame Randy for his mistake, following his no-blame policy. He stated that the Italian engineer behaves similarly to every team member and gives them chances to learn and improve.
Randy also highlighted that Stella embodies “honesty” a lot. Irrespective of the team’s good or bad performance, the Italian is always straightforward in his assessment of where McLaren stands, not hiding anything to portray the reality differently.
Stella was candid about McLaren’s struggles in 2023
The Woking outfit was in the doldrums at the start of the 2023 season. They did not even score 20 points until one-third of the season was over. Amid these struggles, Stella was honest about how their first half of the season would pan out.
He told Sky Sports F1 pundit Karun Chandhok that they were going to be “nowhere” at the front of the field owing to their delay in car development. The initial version of the MCL60 was an incomplete transitional iteration carried over from its 2022 predecessor.
It was their Austrian GP upgrades that brought in a huge step forward in performance. Stella even mentioned to Chandhok, how McLaren would start progress and get podiums in the second half of 2023. And that was exactly how their season panned out.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri started to frequently qualify in the top five and became podium contenders in every race. Their astounding progress can be mapped with how they were P10 in the Constructors’ standings in the initial races and ended up P4, even ahead of Aston Martin who had started the season with the second-fastest car.
