Stella praises McLaren masterminds behind title-winning run

Andrea Stella believes McLaren’s greatest strength heading into Formula 1’s brave new world is not a regulation loophole or an early technical hunch – but the people behind the scenes who already proved they can turn adversity into dominance.

As the sport prepares for a sweeping reset in 2026, the McLaren team principal has delivered a glowing endorsement of the engineers and designers who powered the Woking-based outfit’s rise from F1’s lower-tier midfield at the beginning of 2023 to Constructors’ Championship glory in 2024 and 2025.

For Stella, this success is merely a symptom of a deeper, world-class excellence that resides within McLaren’s factory walls.

Built by people, not luck

“These kinds of achievements are, obviously, the result of the development of the entire team,” Stella explained in Abu Dhabi last month. “But for once, I would like to make a special mention of the technical team.

“The technical team ultimately conceived, designed, and developed a car from being the ninth or 10th best car at the start of 2023.

“It was one of the best cars at the end of 2023, and then it became the best car gradually; the best car definitely in the first part of 2025.”

That transformation stands out all the more given McLaren’s early struggles in the ground-effect era. A wrong turn in the opening year left the team with months of lost development – ground that was eventually recovered with interest.

“If anything, Red Bull gave us an important challenge in the second part of 2025, when we had already stopped the development [of the MCL39] for some time,” Stella added.

Confidence Ahead of the Reset

With 2026 bringing a complete overhaul of both power unit and aerodynamic regulations, uncertainty looms across the grid.

While McLaren will continue as a Mercedes customer – integrating supplied power units and gearboxes – there are no guarantees that recent form will carry over.

Yet Stella sees reassurance in the calibre of the people tasked with tackling the challenge.

“The technical team at McLaren is particularly strong,” the 54-year-old said.

“We can benefit from the contribution of Peter Prodromou [technical director for aerodynamics], Rob Marshall [chief designer], Neil Houldey [technical director for engineering], Mark Ingham [director for design], Giuseppe Pesce [director of aerodynamics and chief of staff], Mark Temple [technical director for performance]...”

For Stella, that collective experience places McLaren in rare company.

“I think, from this point of view, this is one of the strongest technical departments that I could have been part of in my career, 26 years in Formula 1,” insisted the Italian.

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While the regulations themselves may be rewritten from scratch, Stella insists the principles that underpinned McLaren’s resurgence remain fully transferable.

“And this means that – while the specifics of the current regulations will not necessarily apply to the future – the working way, the standards, the approach to the development of the car, to the objectives from a technical point of view, they do carry into the future, and this makes us optimistic for the 2026 season,” he concluded.

In an era where uncertainty reigns, Stella’s confidence is rooted in something McLaren already trusts implicitly – a technical department that has shown it knows how to win its way back to the front.

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