McLaren has clear goal: 'Then it has to be a team effort'

Zak Brown did not think for a moment about looking externally for a team boss after Andreas Seidl's departure. The McLaren CEO was immediately very confident about promoting Andrea Stella and therefore quickly started talks with him, he told GPblog and others during a press briefing.

A lot happened behind the scenes in Formula 1 this week. Jost Capito left Williams, Seidl made the move to Sauber, Frederic Vasseur took up the challenge at Ferrari and Stella moved on to the role of McLaren team boss.

McLaren's confidence in Stella

Brown thinks it is McLaren's strength that it chooses to put its trust in a man within the team, when he could have looked to other racing teams as well. In doing so, however, he would not express his opinion on the very fact that Ferrari made the choice to release Vasseur from Sauber.

"It's hard for me to comment on other teams," Brown responded. "Ultimately I don't know that much about them. We have done a lot of promotion from within, we have a really solid racing team. The response I've had from the racing team about Andrea's appointment has been predictably very well received. As we try to build a team to get back to competing for world championships, it has to be a team effort."

"This feels like we won't miss a beat versus introducing someone from the outside, because it takes quite a way to get up to speed. If we didn't have Andrea, that might've been an alternative to look at but it was clear to all of us quickly that Andrea was who we wanted to run the team."