Stella aims to strengthen McLaren's aero department

Newly appointed McLaren F1 team boss Andrea Stella says he will continue to follow the road map laid out by his predecessor Andreas Seidl, but the Italian also wants to strengthen McLaren on the aerodynamic side.

This week's whirlwind of senior management changes at Sauber, Ferrari and McLaren has led to team papaya's executive director Stella taking over from Sauber-bound Seidl.

The 51-year-old Italian engineer, who started his career at McLaren in 2015 after spending 14 years at Ferrari, was always the outfit's first choice as team principal according to McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.

But Stella has made clear that he will pick up the baton to lead McLaren through a continuation rather than a transformation phase.

• Read also: Brown explains why McLaren fast-tracked Seidl move to Sauber

"In terms of how we continue for the future, there’s clearly elements of continuation," he told the media on Tuesday.

"I think we worked very well with Andreas. We established some very important directions and we do want to consolidate them.

"At the same time, the complexity of Formula 1 leaves the business always open for opportunities.

"It’s day one [on the] job for me, but this is what I’m thinking about intensively and what I will be thinking about together with my leaders at McLaren so that we can find the further opportunities to go even faster towards achieving our mission."

Stella cited the completion next year of McLaren's infrastructure build-out as one of the team's main priorities, highlighting in particular the integration of the outfit's new wind tunnel.

"In terms of areas of opportunities, I think, where we definitely would like to make a step forward is delivering a quick car," he explained.

"Some of the reasons why we haven’t been able to do that so far, we know that they are quite structural, and there’s really good action and investments going on at McLaren so that we can overcome these limitations.

"We have important infrastructure coming to fruition in 2023 like the wind tunnel, the new simulator, and I think completing this business is certainly one of my priorities."

But Stella's sees McLaren's aero department as a specific area that will be strengthened in the future.

"At the same time, we want to make some areas of the team stronger," he added.

" We know enough about Formula 1 [so that] we know it is fundamentally an aerodynamic game. So no surprise that one of the areas we want to get stronger is on the aerodynamic side."

"I think we have incredible talent, possibly we need to expand manpower in that area, and that’s also one of the projects that are ongoing which will certainly grant continuity."

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