It’s easy, some might say.
It’s easy not to leave a team that has just won the Constructors’ World Championship and, after the pre-season tests in Sakhir, has the ambition to start the new season as the technical and performance benchmark in Formula 1.
Of course, it’s easier to stay where things are going well. But McLaren hasn’t come from years of dominance. The teams that have done that, at least in the last decade, are Mercedes and Red Bull. And when they were winning everywhere, at Woking, they were often struggling in the midfield, with the ambition to return to the places that a historic and winning team like McLaren truly belongs to.
But hoping, thinking, dreaming is one thing. Putting together the recovery plan that Zak Brown and Andrea Stella had in mind is another. Yet, in just a few years, McLaren has gone from the disasters of the Honda era to being world champion.
The path has been one, which has involved—exactly—one word: continuity. Continuity in the staff, of course, adding pieces to the puzzle (even making mistakes, as seen in the David Sanchez case), but without overturning the core, nor making revolutions.
And now, as a benchmark in Formula 1, McLaren finds itself having to deal with the inevitable: being both a target and prey of other teams, who aim to poach qualified staff from Woking to climb back up. But the structure built over the years by Brown and impeccably managed by Stella is solid.
Zak Brown and Andrea Stella explained why it is difficult to see someone leave the papaya team today. The McLaren CEO and team principal stated that they are not concerned about other teams’ interest in those under contract with the team, explaining the philosophy that makes what, at their arrival, was no longer solid, solid again.
“Sure, we’ve noticed some interest in the people who work for us. Honestly, though, it’s something that doesn’t disturb us.”
“It’s normal for teams to try to acquire each other’s expertise. But this is even more so, if anything, the reason behind our vision of long-term stability for the team, which also applies to our drivers in the most obvious and public form.”
“Part of our daily management for me and Zak is to look at the entire team, the senior figures but also the younger members of the McLaren team dedicated to Formula 1 to ensure not only that they are stable from a contractual perspective, but also to ensure that they have intrinsic reasons to always prefer McLaren as a workplace in F1 and achieve significant success for the team, of course, but also at a personal level.”
“We don’t work just from a contractual standpoint, but also through a more substantial approach,” said Brown. “We care about creating the right conditions to ensure that our people want to stay with us. Andrea (Stella), for example, has a long-term contract.”
“Often, we hear that other teams steal sponsors, drivers, employees. But it’s not like that. The truth is, they are lost. If someone manages to take our logo off one of our employees’ shirts, it’s our fault. So, I believe that, apart from the contractual element that we want to create—and we’ve succeeded—this year, we won’t have a single change at the pit wall.”
“There has been no change in our technical leadership. Of course, there’s been no change in the driver lineup either,” continued Zak Brown, referring to Oscar Piastri’s contract renewal, which was confirmed just a few hours ago. “And this is because we have worked very hard to create an environment where people want to stay at McLaren, and their families want to stay with us. That’s the situation.”
“It’s an aspect that I, Andrea, and the management focus on a lot to make sure that people want to be at McLaren, without having to rely solely on contracts to keep them with us.”
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