The new McLaren chief plans to use what he learned during his years with an incredibly successful Ferrari team to inspire success in Woking.
Andrea Stella is the new team principal at McLaren taking over from Andreas Seidl. The latter's departure was announced this week, as he has landed a new role as chief executive at the Sauber group which will become Audi works team from 2026.
Stella has been a key part of McLaren's management team for several years now, but may be unfamiliar to many F1 fans. That is because, by his own admission, he has generally preferred to do his job out of the limelight and leave the public-facing aspects to others.
That will no longer be possible as team principal, but in any case he has proven in the past that he is capable of communicating well with some of the best racers in the sport's recent history. At Ferrari, he held the roles of performance engineer or race engineer to Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso.
Contributing to the success of three Formula 1 world champions would look pretty good on any CV, but he also learned a lot from those in management above him. Stella worked under the legendary Ferrari chief Jean Todt for several years, before doing the same with his replacement Stefano Domenicali.
Asked what he learned from those people in his first press conference as McLaren chief, the Italian said: "You learn from everybody – for me that is a very strong philosophy, especially when you work together with strong personalities and very capable people.
"First of all, Jean Todt had incredibly dedication to the team and to his role, which imprinted upon me what it means to be committed. Overall, in the early part of my career in Formula 1 I had the privilege to work in such a successful environment, at Ferrari.
"As for Stefano [Domenicali], he is definitely a people person. Formula 1 is about engineering and operations, but is ultimately very much about the people. So from Stefano, I understood some elements and qualities that you need to take into how you interact as a team principal and also some ways of interacting with people based on respect – listening and also managing your ego."
Stella went on to add of his McLaren predecessor Seidl: "What I take from collaborating with Andreas is the importance of knowing the business, the importance of knowing all the technical, engineering and operational aspects such that you can coach people and support people in a more effective way."
