McLaren united: 'the F1 team that nobody wants to leave'

“It’s super important for everyone,” said Norris when Motor Sport asked about the benefits that come with stability. “For myself and Oscar it’s obviously just a good feeling knowing that you’re going to be here for a long time. And at the minute, we’re both going to be here till we go grey! So that’s a good thing.

“But also from the management side of things, Andrea, Zak, Prod, a lot of the guys who give us the car to go out and perform. So we have stability, and stability is one of the best things in the world. It’s a thing that’s overlooked quite often.

“I think it’s always something that’s thought about, but in an environment that is so explosive and so many things can happen, it’s a strength that we have, comparing to all of our other competitors and teams, is that we’re all going to be here as a team and united for a long time, when they’re going to be looking at other things. So it’s a strength that we have for the minute.”

“No-brainer” contract extension for Piastri

For Piastri committing to the long-term was a logical move in the face of the obvious interest from potential suitors – including Red Bull boss Christian Horner, who made his admiration for him clear in the latest series of Drive to Survive.

“It was from both sides, really,” says the Aussie. “I was already signed up for this year and next, but it felt like just a very natural progression to sign for even longer term.

“I think my two years with the team have been pretty incredible, starting from where we were when I joined to being constructors’ champions now.

“It made a lot of sense in my mind to try and continue that and build with the team. Obviously myself and Lando are both there for a long time now, Andrea is on a long term contract, Zak, key technical staff as well. So for me, it seemed like a no-brainer, and think it was reciprocated from the team as well.”

Making McLaren the best place to work in F1

It’s a natural outcome of success that rival teams will try to hire your best people, and indeed McLaren wasn’t shy about taking key Red Bull folk such as Prodromou, Marshall and future sporting director Will Courtenay, who remains in gardening leave limbo.

Sometimes staff members who can add a world championship to their LinkedIn CV can use it to leverage their way into a better job at another team. However, McLaren’s management has worked hard to make sure that the grass is greener on this side of the fence. So why would you want to leave?

“We have noticed a certain interest to our people,” says Stella. “In fairness, this is a position that doesn’t upset us. I think it’s just natural that teams look at acquiring expertise from each other.

“But this is even more, if anything, a reason behind our vision for a long-term stability of the team, which applies to our drivers in the most noticeable and most public form.

“It’s part of our daily management for myself and for Zak to look at the entire team, the senior people and even the more junior colleagues to make sure not only that they are stable from a contractual point of view, but also that they have inherent reasons to always want to prefer McLaren as the place where they want to work in F1 and achieve important success for the team, but also what is a success at personal level.”

“People don’t steal your drivers and employees. You lose them”

Brown agrees that making his people want to stay in Woking is just as important as any legal commitment to do so.

“I think what’s important is you hear over the years, people steal your sponsors, people steal your drivers, people steal your employees,” he says. “They don’t. You lose them. If someone can get a logo off our shirt, that’s on us. More power to them.

“We don’t have a single change on our pitwall this year, we don’t have a single change in our technical leadership. We don’t have any changes in our driver roster.

“And that’s because we’ve worked very hard to create an environment where people want to be at McLaren, their families want to be at McLaren, and that’s something that I think Andrea and I and the leadership spend a lot of time on, making it an environment that people want to be at, where we don’t have to rely on contracts to have people stay at McLaren.”

Building on the theme he adds: “I think our role, and my role is to bring stability, visibility, longevity to our drivers, to our leadership, to our team, to our pitwall, to our sponsorship, to our [Mercedes power unit] partnership.

“If you look at the great sports teams, usually stability and camaraderie is a key ingredient to the long-term success and continued success.

“So drivers are obviously a huge element of that, and so I love the fact that sitting here today, I think our race team will look very similar for the foreseeable future, which will mean we should just be able to build on our success.”

Piastri’s potential

It’s a two-way street. Committing to Piastri for (at least) another four years is also a real show of faith in someone who is only heading into his third season. However, for Stella keeping the same pairing was the obvious course of action.

“That was as a decision, simple, natural, and to some extent consequential to the vision Zak and I have for the team,” says the Italian. “Which is a vision that looks at stability for the long-term, and looks at creating the conditions to perform, to be competitive.

“And for us, having Lando and Oscar on board is one of the fundamental conditions to be competitive.

“We know this sport, there’s an element of teams trying to distract”

“It has already paid off immensely, because it’s thanks to having Lando and Oscar on board that we are the first garage – they have been able to deliver 27 podiums, eight victories, 11 pole positions considering races and sprints, and ultimately the World Championship.

“In addition to this capability to deliver that we saw in Oscar, working together and so well with Lando, Oscar is also a perfect fit from a cultural and behavioural point of view, which for us is a very important value to build the team on a strong foundation.”

Piastri had some brilliant days in 2024, but on balance the more experienced Norris had the advantage.

You could argue that there was no rush to commit and that the team could have waited to see how this season unfolded and judge Piastri’s progress. However, Stella is confident that he’ll be right there.

“Oscar has been in F1 for two seasons,” he says. “And for somebody who’s been in F1 for two seasons the level at which he has driven, the level of maturity he has shown inside and outside of the car, has been no shorter than simply impressive.

“We are world champions because he delivered. Being constructors’ world champions is just the sum of the points of the two drivers. The trajectory we have observed in Oscar’s growth was very convincing, and at no point we saw that this trajectory had any sort of deviation from being very steep.

“So for us, committing to Oscar was very natural.”

“There wasn’t pressure either side,” says Brown. “We know we want to have stability and visibility moving forward. That puts everyone in a great frame of mind. And I think obviously people perform at their optimum levels of performance when they’re not distracted.

“And we know this sport, there’s an element of teams trying to distract and just wanted to get well ahead of we knew exactly what we wanted to do.

“He’s done a fantastic job. I think all drivers and all teams are always, kind of constantly working to improve. So is there room for improvement in Oscar? Absolutely. Is there room for improvement in Lando?

“Absolutely. Is there room for improvement with Andrea and I, absolutely, and we’re going to do it together in this great team environment that we’ve created. So it was an easy decision.”

McLaren starts as favourite

Bahrain testing gave some indication of 2025 form, and this weekend’s season opener Melbourne will give the first proper test of whether or not McLaren really will be the team to beat this year.

Piastri would like to think that he can be part of a period of domination that can continue for a few years, but he acknowledges that nothing can be taken for granted.

“Obviously that would be ideal, to try and have that level of success and competitiveness,” he says. “And I think that’s what every team dreams of, what every driver dreams of.

“Of course, that’s what we want to aim for. But we have a new set of rules coming next year that’s probably going to change the pecking order quite a bit, or at least the gaps quite a bit. So I don’t think it’s the same circumstances.

“But also I think this year is going to be an incredibly competitive year of F1, and as much as I would like to try and have that level of success, I think it’s going to be very, very tough.”