(Motorsport-Total.com) – Dear readers,
McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella doesn’t like chaos – or, more precisely, any form of imperfection. This has long been known even outside the Formula 1 paddock.
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The Italian’s media appointments almost always start one or two minutes later than planned. The reason: He first has to clear the mess on the table that arises when journalists carelessly place their smartphones and recording devices on it. Device by device, he rearranges them, as symmetrically as possible and in a clear structure – with a meticulousness reminiscent of an obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Among journalists, this has long been a running gag. This was also the case before his media session on Saturday evening at 7 PM at the Hungaroring – the first this year after a pole position for McLaren and also the first pole of the season for a non-Mercedes driver. When he was jokingly offered to just let the chaos be chaos this time, Stella immediately refused.
“No,” he said, smiling. “No. That’s the only option we’re not pursuing.” Only after all the devices in front of him were arranged into a perfect square could the questions begin.
Microphone errors only briefly slow down Andrea Stella
But that wasn’t the last imperfection that slowed Stella down that evening. After less than a minute of his first statement, the microphone failed. He asked McLaren’s Head of Communications, Luca Colajanni, for a replacement device.
Then it happened again. And again. When the red light on the microphone started blinking for the third time – possibly a sign of overmodulation – Stella turned to Colajanni again. “You’re trying to expose me, I guess,” he said with a smile.
Whether that was actually just a joke, probably only the employees of McLaren’s communications department would know. In the paddock, it is said that Stella does not simply let such small shortcomings go unnoticed. Rather, he explains to his employees exactly why there is no room for carelessness at McLaren and why every task – no matter how small – must be completed as flawlessly as possible.
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It was precisely this perfect execution, or “Execution” in English, that Stella was also talking about on Saturday. Because in his opinion, it was not solely the speed of the MCL40 that led Lando Norris to his first pole position as reigning Formula 1 World Champion.
It was also crucial that McLaren had done almost everything right this weekend. In his opinion, Ferrari had even had the faster car, at least until then.
“If we look closely at the data and combine the best corners of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, then I believe Ferrari still had the greatest potential. And part of the result is also…”, Stella began before his microphone failed again.
With a new microphone, he continued: “… due to the execution. Due to the execution as a team, because we have worked very carefully to find good countermeasures for the difficult conditions. And also due to the execution by the drivers.”
The difficult path back to the top
The 2026 season has been far from perfect for McLaren so far – especially compared to the dominant first half of last year’s season. However, there are understandable reasons for this: Mercedes and Ferrari, who now lead the Constructors’ Championship, were able to stop their development of the 2025 car much earlier and concentrate all resources on their vehicles for the new regulations.
In addition, there is another disadvantage that is particularly evident this year: McLaren is a customer team of Mercedes.
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Again and again, Stella explained in his media sessions – without blaming his engine partner – that McLaren naturally does not understand the new power unit package from Mercedes High Performance Powertrains (HPP) as deeply as the factory team. Their own simulation tools are also currently not yet able to fully exploit the potential of the delivered power unit.
Only on Saturday did Stella explain for the first time that some of the “discrepancies” McLaren had struggled with at the previous Grand Prix had now disappeared.
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What the McLaren updates achieve
This was also a positive side effect of the new McLaren update, which was used for the first time in Hungary. It is initially only the first part of a larger development package; further components are to follow in the upcoming races.
McLaren is pursuing a different development strategy than, for example, Ferrari. While the Scuderia often brings smaller updates, McLaren relies on larger development steps. The first came already in Miami. Although the package brought the expected performance gain, McLaren was subsequently overtaken by competitors who continuously improved their cars with smaller but more frequent innovations.
It remains remarkable, however, that under Stella, McLaren has made significant progress with almost every major update for several years. This fits another peculiarity of the team principal – almost as well known as his passion for order on the media table: Stella is surprised anew every time an update actually brings the expected big leap in performance. This time was no different.
Has McLaren exceeded its own expectations?
“I think our progress in terms of competitiveness is entirely due to the updates we brought here. As I said yesterday and as could be seen from the submitted documents, the package consisted of several new components.”
“At the same time, however, we were of the opinion that this time gain would probably not be enough to get pole position at the Hungaroring. And we certainly would not have expected our race pace to be so strong.”
“Honestly, I still believe that we need to focus on bringing further updates if we want to regularly fight for victories in the future.”
The 2025 World Championship title fight leaves its mark
That McLaren would have difficulties at the beginning of this season was ultimately hardly surprising. The team had fought for both world championship titles until the end of the 2025 season and, at the same time, as a Mercedes customer team, had to master the challenges of the new regulations.
All the more remarkable is the way McLaren has now worked its way back. Under Stella’s leadership, the team once again shows exactly those qualities for which it has become known in recent years. Everything indicates that McLaren will soon be regularly fighting for victories and world championships again.
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At the end of his media session on Sunday, Stella added: “When I thanked the team for the updates, I forgot to mention HPP. I would like to do that now. And not just because you naturally thank your technical partner and engine supplier.”
“Truly excellent work has been done after some discussions about the use of the power unit. I believe that McLaren and HPP have done the best job so far here in Hungary, really extracting every single millisecond from the power unit.”
“The fact that we took pole position on Saturday with just twelve milliseconds advantage shows how much performance could still be found there. Therefore: Many thanks to HPP.”
McLaren seems to have now eliminated many of the small imperfections that had slowed the team down for several months. Of course, there is still work to be done. But one thing seems certain: Andrea Stella will not allow even the smallest detail to go unnoticed or unimproved.
And if any final proof were needed: On Sunday, his microphone worked flawlessly throughout the entire media session.
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Yours
Oleg Karpow