McLaren boss Andrea Stella has explained how the team made the jump from its Formula 1 Constructors’ title success in 2024 to its dominant retention of the crown in 2025.
The Woking-based squad has dominated the field this year, winning all but six of the races contested so far, enabling it to keep a firm grip on the Constructors’ Championship.
And such is its superiority that both Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have been able to solely fight it out for the Drivers’ Championship, in a sort of dominance not seen since the days of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
The MCL39 has been noted for possessing a myriad of advantages that its rivals’ challengers don’t have, including an envied regulation of its tyre temperatures, and two different kinds of front suspension, one that suits Piastri, the other Norris.
Despite seeing Red Bull make significant gains recently, the MCL39 will still be celebrated for its ingenuity and guile, something that Stella is all too keen to remind everyone.
“In terms of the car itself, I’ve said several times that, if anything, the MCL39 can be summarised, if we need to do it with one word, as innovation,” he told media including Motorsport Week after the Singapore Grand Prix, where the title was won.
“There was lots of innovation applied to what was last year’s car and this required quite a bit of bravery at some stage of the 2024 season to commit to the amount of changes that we have applied to go from the 2024 to the 2025 car.”
Stella praises McLaren engineering department for ‘brave’ vision
Stella expanded on the changes that have been made, noting the “suspension, cooling, a little bit of the aerodynamic philosophy, many areas,” adding, “if anything I would say pretty much all the fundamental areas, even the interaction of the car with the tyres which has been a topic for a few months at the start of the season.
“So in all those areas there’s been a lot of innovation.
“And I talk about bravery because our engineering understanding, our engineering execution, has been challenged to the point of the leading edge of our knowledge.
“So we were definitely exploring some new territory, but we were confident in the capacity, the capability and the expertise that we have available in the engineering department at McLaren.
“And definitely a shout out to our engineering department that they’ve been able to take these challenges, make them real, create such a fast car.”
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