Andrea Stella says the strength of McLaren’s technical departments stand the team in good stead for the 2026 Formula 1 season.
McLaren struggled at the start of the ground effect era in 2022, and in early 2023 had one of the slowest cars on the grid. But after turning that situation around to then win back-to-back constructors’ championships – plus a drivers’ title this year – Stella says there is every reason to believe McLaren will remain competitive under new regulations next season.
“These kind of achievements, they are obviously the result of the development of the entire team, but for once I would like to make a special mention to the technical team,” Stella said.
“The technical team ultimately conceived, designed, developed a car that from being 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 gradually the best car – the best car definitely in the first part of 2025. If anything, Red Bull gave us an important challenge in the second part of 2025, when we had stopped already the development for some time.
“The technical team at McLaren is particularly strong, we can benefit from the contribution of Peter Prodromou, Rob Marshall, Neil Houldey, Mark Ingham, Giuseppe Pesce, Mark Temple… 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.
“This means that while the specifics of the current regulations will not necessarily apply in 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.”
McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says he is enthused by the challenge of having to try and build another championship-winning car under new rules, and emphasized that evolution of the team back at the factory should not be overlooked.
“It’s been an amazing quest to go from where we were, not only on track but off track,” Brown said. “I think the commitment that we’ve had from our shareholders, specifically Mumtalakat, has been unbelievable from day one. All they want us to do is win, have a great brand and take care of our people. And I think because we take care of our people, that’s why we’ve had the results that we have.
“We’ve got unbelievable sponsors, total support from our shareholders, our chairman, and that enables Andrea and I and our leadership team to put our head down and get on with the job.
“As far as the rule book, that’s the exciting part of Formula 1. We’ve got to do it all over again. We changed a lot of our car this year, so even though the rules didn’t significantly change, our technical team didn’t sit still.
“And just like our technical team, our leadership team – our CFO, our head of HR, our commercial team, our head of comms, chief of staff – they all have to do an amazing job, because the complexity of a Formula 1 team to be able to put the technical team and the racing team in a position to win, there’s a lot of stuff that has to go on behind the scenes to even give them the tools, the resources, and us, the people.
“So it’s a great accomplishment, because we definitely earned it the hard way, and now we’ve got to do it all over again. It’ll be tough, because the worst team in Formula 1 is really good. So not only the competition of the drivers … the competition of the teams – there’s no more small teams anymore, there’s no minnow teams that we all grew up with. Everyone’s running at the cost cap, the sport’s unbelievably healthy, and it’s been very enjoyable.”
