Stella insists McLaren resurgence is 'a group work'

McLaren F1 boss Andrea Stella refuses to take credit for the Woking-based outfit's recent resurgence, insisting the team's turnaround is "a group work".

A three-stage upgrade package initiated at the Austrian Grand Prix carried McLaren to the front of the grid at Silverstone, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri qualifying second and third.

While there was no challenging Red Bull's Max Verstappen for a race win on Sunday at Silverstone, both drivers held their own at the top of the field of challengers, with Piastri only losing out on the final spot on the podium due to an ill-timed pitstop before a safety car period.

McLaren's sudden and remarkable progress followed the team's low-key start to its 2023 campaign.

From the outset, Stella recognized that the squad's MCL60 contender was under-developped and would require a significant in-season makeover to improve its performance and especially its aerodynamic efficiency.

• Read also: Mercedes keen to closely analyse McLaren upgrades

At the helm of team papaya following the Andreas Seidl's transfer to Audi, Stella directed the car's transformation while also overseeing a restructuring of McLaren's engineering departments, with former technical director James Key departing the team and Stella implementing a new three-way management structure.

The move, put together by Stella following a demand by McLaren Racing boss Zak Brown, aimed to bring the team’s technical prowess in line with its sporting ambitions.

Stella is very much the man of the moment at McLaren, but the Italian insists on deflecting much of the praise sent his way towards his colleagues.

"You know, for me, my focus is just doing the right things," he said. "Just focus on performance, focus on creating a vision for the team, making sure that everyone understands what the vision is, and what the direction is.

"The most important thing is that you don't do these things alone. I've been very, very well supported. And even the collaboration with Zak has been incredibly close and strategic.

"It will be a mistake to say, 'I', or 'you'. It's a group work, even when it comes to the leadership. An F1 team is too complex to think that somebody alone can turn a situation around."

Addressing McLaren's three-pronged technical structure that will feature Peter Prodromou (aerodynamics), Rob Marshall (engineering and design) and David Sanchez (car concept and performance), Stella explained that the new organization was about entrusting a car's design and development to an integrated system rather than to an individual, as was the case previously under Key.

"We wanted to establish a different model, from a technical point of view, based on distributing the aerodynamic, car concept and performance, and the engineering and design function in three different areas," he explained. "This is just a different way of working.

"It doesn't have to do with somebody in particular, it just requires a bit more of a distributed model when it comes to the technical organisation. So that was the rationale.

"And, if we talk about the leadership that contributed to the change, I want to praise all the people that work with me - Piers Thynne, the chief operating officer, and Daniel Gallo, chief people officer - and then certainly all of this under the coordination and the strategic input from Zak. So, it's teamwork."

While Stella shies away from the limelight, Brown is happy to put the spotlight back on McLaren's team principal.

"This guy is awesome," Brown told Sky. "The way he inherited what we had at the start of the year, recognised the challenges that we had, put in a technical restructure and promoted people from within.

"Because while we've made some big hires that are joining, they haven't joined yet, so this is still the work of all the men and women under Andrea's leadership."

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