Andrea Stella speaks on working under different F1 team principals and learning from them ahead of his big run at McLaren.
In his long and illustrious career, Stella has worked under different bosses taking bits from everyone which will be useful for him in his life as new McLaren F1 team principal. A larger chunk of his time was spent at Ferrari under different bosses.
He not only had Jean Todt but also Stefano Domenicali there, both of whom have went on to take jobs at FIA and F1 respectively. Most recently, Stella learnt the tricks from Andreas Seidl, who spent a good time at Porsche in a successful endurance campaign.
For Stella, he has picked up as much from everyone and will bring his own element to the table. “I think certainly the outside element of the team principal job is something I needed to reflect on,” he said to media including FormulaRapida.net. “I’ve been reluctant…I just focus on my job so…it needed a bit of thought but I guess its about familiarity and honesty and its about characteristics itself.
“I think I will use my interaction outside and I think I am up for the challenge. Regarding the team principals I’ve worked with…I think I worked with more than three. You can work with anyone, strong personalities, capable people, there’s a lot to learn. Jean Todt had incredible dedication to the team and his role, it is something that gave me an early imprinting of my career in F1 and was a privilege to work in such an environment as Ferrari in 2000.
“As for Stefano, he is definitely a people person and F1 is definitely about people operations but ultimately about people and I understood some elements and qualities that you need to take highly regarded as a team principal based on respect and listening to people and managing your ego.
“Andreas also brought some engineering experience from previous so this was very useful for me in helping the race team and making progress in areas like the pit stop. When we talk about the progress made in terms of the pit stops by McLaren, I think we should pay tribute to Andreas.
“So I think what we should take from Andreas is the importance of knowing the business, the technical and engineering aspects so you can coach people and support people in a more effective way,” summed up Stella, who will have Zak Brown at his side to aide him with commercial matters.
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