The name ‘Andrea Stella’ may have been unfamiliar to many fans when he was announced as McLaren’s new team principal back in December – but not many figures in Formula 1 have a CV quite like Stella’s.
The new leader of McLaren’s F1 team has earned his new position after joining the team in 2015. His previous roles include head of race operations, performance director and executive director for racing.
His position within McLaren has largely kept him out of the spotlight – until now. His appointment as team principal came after Andreas Seidl stepped away to become chief executive of Sauber Group, in anticipation of Audi’s arrival in 2026.
Stella was a logical appointment for the team. His experience of the F1 world includes a lengthy spell at another top team: Ferrari. He joined McLaren as Fernando Alonso returned to them, and although this will be his first year as team principal, he has two decades of F1 experience under his belt.
Seidl’s departure was not part of McLaren CEO Zak Brown’s plan for re-establishing the team as a championship-winning force. Nonetheless, he says Stella was the “number one option” after his predecessor quit.
The change was announced just before Christmas, with testing only a few months away. Speaking to media including RaceFans at the launch of their new car this week, Brown described the changeover as “very seamless – the change happened effectively overnight and Andrea settled in the next morning.”
McLaren isn’t the only team to have needed a new team principal since last season ended, and Brown is clear they preferred to promote from within. “Obviously he’s very aware of the team, he’s worked very closely with all of them, being here almost a decade,” he said. “So it was exactly who we wanted to have run the racing team.”
However, Brown admitted Stella did consider his options before signing on the dotted line. “Once Andrea slept on it a little bit, we hit the ground running,” he said. “It’s been a continuation from where we left off.”
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Stella, whose Formula 1 career started as a performance engineer for Ferrari in 2000, has worked with some of F1’s greatest drivers, including Alonso, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen. But he admits there is a lot for him still to learn.
“The points of strength of this transition,…
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