McLaren still an 'exciting prospect' for new talent – Stella

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says team papaya is viewed as an "exciting prospect" for job applicants despite its current struggles and has no issues attracting new talent.

Last month, on the back of a difficult start to its 2023 campaign, McLaren announced the exit of technical director James Key and the creation of a three-pronged management structure that features three technical directors -- Peter Prodromou (aerodynamics), Davide Sanchez (car concept and performance), and Neil Houldey (engineering and design) -- who will all answer to McLaren team principal Andrea Stella.

The move, put together by Stella at the request of McLaren Racing boss Zak Brown, aims to bring the team’s technical prowess in line with its sporting ambitions.

Asked whether McLaren has struggled to recruit fresh talent during its period of underperformance, Stella this had not been the case.

"McLaren has always come across like a very exciting prospect for the people we have interviewed, and everyone understands the ambition we have," Stella explained.

"Everyone understands that if we turn the situation around that McLaren are making history and everyone wants to be part of it. So I wouldn’t say that attracting talent has been complicated."

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Stella said that it was too early to assess what impact the recent changes to the structure of its tech department would have on its recruitment process.

"The effect of the change of model is too recent to actually affect the process of recruitment," he said.

"Let me just start by saying that the way we have approached recruitment overall is part of this philosophy of our performance-led organization.

"Even the way you recruit people you think about performance, which means like we are aggressive from this point of view as required to compete in F1."

After multiple delays due to the Covid pandemic, McLaren is in the process of completing its new infrastructure buildout at Woking, with its new wind-tunnel, which is now in the calibration phase, set to come online in June.

McLaren boss Zak Brown has targeted 2025 as the term by which his team must become a consistent winner in F1 and thereafter a title contender.

So far, there have been no changes to that projection.

"No one doubts our commitment. our shareholders’ commitment, our board’s commitment to getting back to the front," Brown commented, quoted by Motorsport Week.

"Finally, a lot of the infrastructure that we’ve been speaking about for years – because it’s been years in the making.

"Our wind tunnel is just about ready to come online. The belt’s rolling, the air is going so it’s being calibrated. A new manufacturing unit with all new state-of-the-art, manufacturing equipment.

"You can walk in it, you can see the buildings and a lot of other infrastructure that we were quite far behind on that we invested in that.

"We then got stalled in during the COVID on progressing some of that just from a world being shut down. So things like the wind tunnel obviously would have been done earlier.

"We have all the resources we need, we’ve got two great racing drivers, a great history in the sport and a ton of enthusiasm and excitement.

"So we’re head down, we’re highly motivated and we’ve got people – a lot of people – that have joined us, and a lot of people that are in the process of joining us.

"And now that Andrea has put the model in place, we’re not done turbocharging that model. We’re just getting started."

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