Randeep Singh, McLaren Racing Director, has credited a fundamental shift in workplace culture for powering the squad back to the top of Formula 1.
The Woking-based team dominated previous decades under Ron Dennis, but fell sharply down the grid during the early turbo-hybrid years before Dennis exited in late 2016.
CEO Zak Brown took charge in 2018 to overhaul the team’s commercial footing.
His key decision came in early 2023, when he promoted Andrea Stella to Team Principal.
That leadership partnership triggered a remarkable competitive revival, culminating in a historic double championship triumph last season.
Speaking to Sky F1, Singh highlighted how eradicating a “blame culture” transformed employee mindset and operational performance across the factory.
“The main thing is just the leadership changed with Andrea and Zak, and I think that’s just empowered everyone to go about their jobs,” Singh said.
“There’s no blame. I don’t know how easy it is to look over that.
“But if you’re doing things that are quite stressful that can go the wrong way because they’re based off percentages, like doing the strategy, you sometimes get caught up in thinking, ‘oh, what will people think if I make a mistake’.
“There’s none of that here. You just get on with constantly improving. You don’t worry if there’s a bad result.
“If there’s a bad decision, obviously you try and dig into it and try and understand it and improve.
“But seriously, there’s no blame whatsoever. You come out of races where there’ve been mistakes.
“Good things, bad things, and you treat them the same way. So that’s really empowering.”
By replacing fear with psychological safety, Brown and Stella have built a sustainable environment at McLaren where calculated risk-taking drives winning results.
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