Freshly appointed McLaren F1 boss Andrea Stella owes his new position with team papaya to his highly rated talent, but also to the vast knowledge and experience he has acquired over the years.
Stella has picked up the baton from top McLaren man Andreas Seidl as a seasoned veteran who joined the Woking-based outfit in 2015, but whose background also includes a 15-year tenure with Ferrari.
At the House of Maranello, where he began his career as a performance engineer, Stella worked alongside world champions Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen as well as with Fernando Alonso.
But the 51-year-old Italian engineer's experience was also shaped under the orders of Scuderia chiefs Jean Todt and Stefano Domenicali.
"You learn from anybody," Stella said in an interview published this week on the McLaren website.
"I think for me that’s a very strong philosophy, especially when you work together with strong personalities and very capable people. There’s a lot to learn.
“First of all Jean Todt, his incredible dedication to the team and to his role is something that gave me a bit of an imprint of what it means to be committed, overall kind of early imprinting of my career in F1, having a privilege to work in such a successful environment in the Ferrari of 2000s.
"Stefano is definitely a people person, and Formula 1 is about engineering operations, but is ultimately very much about people," he added while talking about F1's current CEO. .
"From Stefano I understood elements and qualities that you need to take, highly regarded as a team principal, and also his way of interacting with people based on respect, listening, and just think managing your ego, somehow."
Stella's efforts in recent years as McLaren's performance director and racing director, coupled with those of production director Piers Thynne, were instrumental in ensuring the team's turnaround under Seidl's guidance.
And Stella didn't leave out the man he is replacing at McLaren as a leading figure from whom he learned so much.
"Andreas, we worked even more closely, I think he also brought some engineering experience so this was very useful for me also in shaping up the race team, making progress in some of the areas like pit stop," he said.
"If we talk about progress made in terms of pit stops by McLaren I would like to pay tribute to Andreas’ input.
"So from what I have taken from collaborating with Andreas is the importance of knowing the business, the importance of knowing even the technical, operational, engineering aspects, so you can coach people, you can support people, in a more effective way to make progress."
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