McLaren wish list for new era revealed

Sam Hall
Sunday 18 December 2022 11:30

New McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has revealed the areas of weakness he hopes to address after taking up the reins from Andreas Seidl.

The team principal transfer market went into overdrive in the past week as four teams announced changes.

Notably, Seidl made a shock move to become the CEO of Sauber, with McLaren quickly announcing the promotion of executive director racing Stella to the top job.

The continuity through promoting from within gives Stella an advantage on other new appointments, with his inside knowledge providing the ability to immediately produce a priority list for improvements.

Addressing those, Stella said: "In terms of areas of opportunity, where we definitely would like to take a step forward is in delivering a quick car.

"Some of the reasons we haven't been able to do that so far, we know they are quite structural and there is really good action and investments going on at McLaren so we can overcome this limitation.

"We already know there is important infrastructure coming to fruition in 2023 like the wind tunnel, the new simulator, and completing this business is certainly one of my priorities. At the same time, we want to make some areas of the team stronger.

"We know F1 is fundamentally an aerodynamic game so no surprises that one of the areas we want to get stronger is in aerodynamics.

"We have incredible talent there. Possibly, we need to expand manpower in that area and that is also one of the projects that is ongoing and which will grant continuity."