Stella welcomes Marshall: ‘The best leader we could get’ | FormulaPassion.it

The structure of McLaren

A little over three months ago McLaren had announced a three-headed technical management that would organize work on the car in the key areas identified by team principal Andrea Stella and managing director Zak Brown. Following the departure of James Key and the simultaneous arrival of David Sanchez, the Woking team’s spending on rivals continued with Rob Marshalltaken from Red Bull.

Under the new organization at Woking in 2024, Marshall will be technical director of engineering and design with Neil Houldey as deputy, while Sanchez will lead performance and concepts and Peter Prodromou will lead aerodynamics. It is clear that this is a wide-ranging project, which aims for 2026 to return to the top of Formula 1. Only in three years, it will be said, but in Formula 1 time is much more compressed: we need to be operational right now with the new forces that can work in the factory (gardening permitting). And above all, you need to have clear ideas, which team principal Andrea Stella certainly isn’t lacking in.

Stella’s words

“In order for the organization to work efficiently, I think the most important thing is to understand which technical functions need to be covered in modern Formula 1. For me it’s all about aerodynamics, performance and concepts, and then – to make it all real – engineering and design.“said the Umbrian team principal at Montmeló. “This is the approach we have taken at McLaren, which is quite conceptual. Aerodynamics, performance and concept, engineering and design are the three areas we have focused on. Then we set out to choose the best leader in each of these areas“.

“I think this scheme is good. What McLaren has been missing is not who makes the decisions. Rather, it was a matter of understanding whether we were able to come up with competitive ideas for designing a fast single-seater. This is where we struggled. And we think this organization addresses the problem. This model is not dissimilar, conceptually, from what happens in other teams. It’s pretty much the way Red Bull operates“.