“I feel privileged to take on the Team Principal role,” former Ferrari race engineer Andrea Stella comments after being appointed the new McLaren Team Principal 

“I feel privileged to take on the Team Principal role,” former Ferrari race engineer Andrea Stella comments after being appointed the new McLaren Team Principal 

Andrea Stella

It is musical chair day for all the Team Principals of the F1 teams today since it seems like everyone is busy shifting to each other’s teams, taking up some new roles in search of different challenges than the ones they have faced before. And it had all started a few weeks back when Mattia Binotto declared his resignation from Ferrari. And the most recent reports have revealed that the former Executive Director of Racing at McLaren, Andrea Stella, will be promoted to the Team Principal role now that Andreas Seidl has left the team to become the CEO of Sauber Group.

Italian-born race engineer Andrea Stella joined the McLaren squad back in 2015, taking up the role of the Head of Race Operations, initially. Then, he became the Performance Director, and ultimately took up the responsibilities of the Racing Director for the British team. Before this, he had served as the race engineer and performance engineer at Scuderia Ferrari.

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While some did sense a whiff of animosity between Andreas Seidl and McLaren Boss Zak Brown as the former suddenly announced his departure from the team without any preamble, it has now been clarified that Seidl was transparent with Brown about the offer from Sauber all along. While the fans were not let in on what was going on behind the doors at McLaren, Seidl signed the deal to become Sauber’s new CEO, and then Andrea Stella got promoted to take Seidl’s former position.

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McLaren’s new Team Principal Andrea Stella extends gratitude to Zak Brown

Andrea Stella with former McLaren racer Carlos Sainz
Andrea Stella with former McLaren racer Carlos Sainz

After the entire drama of F1’s silly season, the driver’s market reports revealed that McLaren will be taking up Oscar Piastri as their new recruit after prematurely ending the deal with Daniel Ricciardo amidst his poor results. And now that Andrea Stella is taking up the role of the Team Principal at the Woking-based outfit, it can be said that they are hoping for massive changes in their performance from next season.

Commenting on his new appointment, Andrea Stella said, “I feel privileged to take on the Team Principal role as the next stage of being part of the McLaren F1 Team. I am grateful to Zak and the Shareholders for their trust in me and to all my colleagues and those who have supported me throughout my F1 career.”

As Oscar Piastri is entering the Formula 1 scene after having caused massive chaos in the drivers’ market with him opting out of the Alpine deal and choosing to drive for McLaren instead, the Australian has a lot of expectations to live up to once he debuts as a regular F1 racer at the 2023 season opener in Bahrain. Driving beside him will be Lando Norris, the British talent who has stayed with McLaren since 2019, and is now the senior driver amongst the two. With all the changes in the team, all eyes will be on McLaren to see if they will make their mark in the upcoming season or not.

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