Team principal Andrea Stella has opened up about how McLaren have delivered a much more successful campaign this year and whether the MCL39 has been the outright best car of the 2025 F1 season.
The British team clinched the Constructors’ Championship last season in Abu Dhabi after a prolonged drought of 26 years. However, they only managed to beat Ferrari by 14 points.
Meanwhile, McLaren have enjoyed a dominant season in 2025, even if their supremacy has waned more recently. They wrapped up their 10th Constructors’ title in Singapore with six races to go.
The Woking-based outfit has 13 wins, 30 podiums, and a whopping 713 points under their belt heading into the São Paulo GP. They now boast more than double the points of their nearest rivals, Ferrari.
How have McLaren developed a better car in 2025?
In a conversation with Tom Clarkson on the F1 Beyond The Grid Podcast, Andrea Stella shared his insights into how McLaren have executed a better campaign in 2025 in comparison to last year.
Emphasising how the MCL39 is a superior car relative to its predecessor, the Italian attributed the massive step forward they have taken this season to the technical team’s ingenious and daring approach. He also admitted how certain modifications to the car had really pushed the horizons of their philosophy.
Furthermore, Stella revealed that he had reservations during the winter break about how the MCL39 wasn’t groundbreaking enough to trounce their rivals in 2025. At the same time, he confessed that he didn’t convey his misgivings to CEO Zak Brown in order to keep the team morale intact.
“First of all, the car is much better than the 2024, but the car is not better because the car changes itself. The car changes, evolves, is much more innovative because of the team.
“The team elevated the game, I would say, first of all, from an engineering point of view. I’ve said that already, the bravery from a technical perspective that went into the 2025 car was a remarkable step forward.
“In Mexico, we have seen the benefit in the innovation we introduced in the cooling system. There’s been some decisions to innovate the front suspension, the rear suspension. Some of them really challenged our knowledge.
“I say sometimes internally that now I can say that over the winter I wasn’t necessarily completely calm, that we had just not gone too far in terms of the innovation. I never told Zak [Brown] that that was the case; I always told Zak, ‘don’t worry, it’s all under control’.
Stella attributes the success to the entire team
Maintaining that the MCL39 is the product of a collaborative effort, Andrea Stella explained how every single member has made incremental gains this season in order to set McLaren apart from the rest of the F1 grid.
Noting how both Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris have grown as drivers in 2025, the 54-year-old also elaborated that this strong line-up and the overall progress of the team resulted in McLaren sealing the title with several rounds to spare.
“The car is a reflection of the team. I think the team, each and every one has embraced to make a little step forward in being better than the year before. Everyone in their own area, which is part of our fundamental ethos.
“Then I think the drivers are better. Oscar [Piastri] has grown enormously from where he was last year and Lando [Norris] has developed as well.
“I think we have benefited this year of this overall general growth in being able to achieve the championship with six races to go.”
Stella denies MCL39’s utter dominance
Asked if McLaren’s noticeable advantage in the first half of the 2025 F1 season surprised him, Andrea Stella responded that his initial expectations weren’t high.
Disclosing how they believed to have fallen short with regard to their comprehensive vision for the MCL39, the Italian refuted the claim that the Woking-based team has boasted the dominant car in the majority of the races this year.
“We were surprised because over the winter, while we innovated so much and we were brave and ambitious, we actually thought that we had achieved 50% of what we wanted to achieve in terms of lap time step.
“In fairness, I have to say that while it looks like McLaren was dominant, this was the case only in a few races.”
Stella believes consistency has set McLaren apart from their F1 rivals in 2025
Underscoring how their car particularly thrives in low-grip and warmer conditions that cause the tyres to overheat and degrade faster, Andrea Stella cited Max Verstappen’s wins from earlier in the year and insisted that their considerable advantage tails off in other instances.
Moreover, the 54-year-old surmised that their overall consistency has allowed McLaren to gain the upper hand over their rivals. While reiterating how the MCL39 has been the best car only under specific circumstances, he also acknowledged that they have delivered solid results throughout the season so far in all conditions and on a variety of tracks.
“I think this [the MCL39 dominating] was the case where it was hot, somehow similar to Mexico.
“We have hot conditions, low grip, high thermal degradation of the tyres in the race. This creates a set of conditions in which I think our car excels. But in many other situations, we were not the fastest. We got beaten.
“Even at the start of the season, Verstappen won Japan; he won Imola. He was [in] pole position in Saudi [Arabia] and he would’ve won the race if it wasn’t for Oscar mastering corner one.
“I think where we have been the best, as a team at least, as a constructor and as drivers, was in our consistency. We have always been there. We have been there in pretty much all conditions, while excelling in some specific conditions.”
