Alonso praises rival team principal: 'A great team leader'

McLaren have announced that they have extended Andrea Stella’s contract on the first day of August. The Italian team principal earned a new contract because of the team’s rise from the midway point of the 2023 season. A driver who formerly worked with the McLaren man, Fernando Alonso, was not short of praise for Stella.

One of Stella’s current drivers, Oscar Piastri, could only agree with the experienced Spanish driver. “He’s an incredible team leader for us. And I think in some ways, because I’m still relatively new I probably don’t appreciate fully the extent of his leadership and expertise as well. But even without that experience, it’s very obvious to me that he’s an incredible person, as Fernando said, and an incredible leader. You only need to look at the results of the team and the turnaround of the team to appreciate that,” the Australian added.

Andrea Stella’s and Fernando Alonso’s paths in Formula One crossed back at Ferrari. Stella at the time was the Spaniard’s race engineer when Alonso signed for the Italian team in 2010. Later, when Alonso left the Scuderia to join McLaren, Stella followed to the British team too. Rising up the ranks at McLaren, Stella became a team principal in December 2022, when he replaced Andrea Seidl. The Italian also just earned another contract extension.

Alonso praises Stella to the highest extent
“He’s an incredible person, first of all, a great engineer and a good team principal now. He’s a great man. And I think people who are honest and people who do things with common sense, normally in life, things will go well with them. I think, yes, he’s a great leader. And as I said, probably ‘common sense’ will define Andrea Stella. And I’m not surprised that he’s doing an incredible job,” Alonso praised the Italian.