{"id":360248,"date":"2025-08-20T20:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T20:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360248\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T20:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T20:00:11","slug":"how-mclaren-avoided-possible-dictator-scenario-with-f1-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/360248\/","title":{"rendered":"How McLaren avoided possible \u2018dictator\u2019 scenario with F1 structure"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren<\/a> boss Andrea Stella has detailed how branching out leadership roles within the team\u2019s technical setup has paid dividends in the 2025 Formula 1<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n

Since 2023, the Woking-based squad has been rapidly adding performance to its ground effects cars.<\/p>\n

Last season, it hit a breakthrough with the MCL38 at the Miami Grand Prix \u2013 helping Lando Norris to his maiden win.<\/p>\n

Not only did McLaren clinch a first Constructors\u2019 title since 1998, but this season, the duo of Norris and Oscar Piastri have won 11 races between themselves, which sees the team comfortably en route to a championship double.<\/p>\n

Stella, who has overseen the team\u2019s meteoric rise alongside CEO Zak Brown, revealed how all of this started from a crucial decision about the team\u2019s structure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first step was to look at the team with a map, and understand what is world championship material and what is not,\u201d he told Motorsport.com. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut also, to identify who are the key leaders that will have to lead their own areas. And the final bit was believing in a model based on collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea was to promote collaboration within the technical setup back at the factory. This meant the Technical Director role was split three ways. <\/p>\n

\u201cI still remember when we announced that we were going from one to three technical directors, there were so many questions about who makes the decisions,\u201d Stella continued. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, who makes the decisions has never been a problem, because my normal way of looking at things is so collaborative that who doesn\u2019t have those kinds of attributes is just not, simply, at the table in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ZakMcLaren has implemented a winning setup<\/p>\n

Human collaboration at the heart of McLaren\u2019s success <\/p>\n

Both Brown and Stella also went on a shopping spree in terms of making key hires across the board at McLaren. <\/p>\n

One of the biggest acquisitions they made was that of Rob Marshall<\/a>, the man who was critical to Red Bull\u2019s success, winning four titles with Sebastian Vettel and two with Max Verstappen, effectively as Adrian Newey\u2019s right-hand man.<\/p>\n

Since he arrived at Woking, he has been seamlessly inducted into McLaren\u2019s technical setup. <\/p>\n

\u201cDecisions normally tend to be just a critical mass of information accumulated, rather than having a dictator that at some stage will make a decision,\u201d Stella asserted. <\/p>\n

\u201cZak and I believed that this is possible. And since then we have added Rob Marshall, which is then a fourth TD, and the dynamics have not changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it requires a lot of presence, a lot of understanding of what\u2019s going on in the business to protect this way of working.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the human interactions that give real meaning to what we achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE \u2013<\/strong> Motorsport Week\u2019s F1 2025 Mid-Season Team Ratings<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren boss Andrea Stella has detailed how branching out leadership roles within the team\u2019s technical setup has paid…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,1710,79,12853,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-360248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-mclaren","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-stella","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115062874101353931","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}