Completing the circle in Abu Dhabi

It's a special day for McLaren, winning the Constructors' World Championship for the first time in no less than 26 years. Neither of the two McLaren drivers on track today in Yas Marina, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were even born when, in the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard delivered the title to the team then run by Ron Dennis. On that occasion too, they were in a fight with Ferrari drivers, back then Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and McLaren is a very different organisation today, not least in its livery that has gone from the black and silver to the striking papaya colour chosen by its founder Bruce McLaren at the end of the Sixties. Today, the McLaren Formula 1 team is headed up by an unusual pairing, with the exuberant and charismatic American CEO, Zak Brown and Andrea Stella, an Italian engineer, who in the role of Team Principal has taken the team from the back of the grid to the championship crown in the space of two years. 
For Stella, this title is special. It's enormously satisfying and it's been achieved with a style of leadership best described as calm and pragmatic. Not even in the most difficult moments, such as the controversy over alleged technical irregularities with the car or the infamous “papaya rules” relating to managing the drivers on track, has he lost his cool. He always appears calm to the outside world and indeed he is and that has helped the team to move forward and cope with fighting for a world championship and all the pressure that entails, something the vast majority of staff at McLaren had never experienced before.

Stella knows a thing or two about pressure, as he lived it every day during his first stint with Ferrari, the winning era of Jean Todt, Michael Schumacher, Stefano Domenicali, Fernando Alonso, even if the Spaniard never won a title, despite coming within touching distance of it. Stella immediately learned what it means to fight for a title, working alongside Michael Schumacher and then Kimi Raikkonen, before taking on the tricky role of Alonso's race engineer at a time when Fernando was supposed to reboot a winning cycle in Maranello. 

It didn't happen, although it came close here in Abu Dhabi on what turned out to be a black day for Ferrari fans. In November 2010, it was Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull Racing who ended up celebrating when all seemed set fair for Ferrari to claim the spoils. That race shaped the destiny of the Italian team, setting it off in a stubborn and wrong direction, even more so than events in Interlagos two years later. The men and women at Ferrari knew it, starting with their then president, Luca di Montezemolo and its team principal, Stefano Domenicali, now the Formula 1 CEO, not forgetting Fernando Alonso himself, as they all went through the most painful racing disappointment of their lives. No doubt, some still ask themselves what might have happened if Fernando had not pitted and then got stuck for almost an entire stint, unable to pass Vitaly Petrov, but had opted to stay on track and comfortably finished fourth, which would have given him his third world championship crown.