Andrea Stella acknowledged the weight of leading a team with McLaren’s history in Formula 1. The head of the British team highlighted the pride and responsibility involved in preserving this legacy while the team seeks to continue evolving.
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At the 2026 Monaco GP, McLaren reached two important milestones, celebrating sixty years since its F1 debut and its 1,000th participation in a category GP. The team became only the second in history to reach this mark, after Ferrari, precisely at the place where Bruce McLaren competed in his first world championship race in 1966.
Since taking command at the beginning of 2023, Stella has been directly involved in McLaren’s transformation. The team moved from the back of the grid to become a constant podium contender, and in 2024, won its first constructors’ championship in twenty-six years.
Growth continued in 2025, when McLaren again secured the constructors’ title and Lando Norris won his first drivers’ championship. Under Stella’s leadership, the team entered this season with fifty-one GP wins and twenty-two poles, reinforcing the scale of the change achieved in recent years.
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When asked about the responsibility of taking care of McLaren’s legacy, Stella acknowledged the importance of the role: “It is certainly a significant responsibility, accompanied by a feeling of pride, which I am sure is shared by all my teammates,” he said.
The Italian also highlighted that leading McLaren represents a privilege due to the team’s importance in the history of the category and the way it faces the future: “There is hunger for victories, there is energy, there is talent. There is the desire to write new chapters worthy of the tradition we carry on our shoulders, and to do so in true McLaren style,” he added.
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