How McLaren is meeting the unexpected challenges of racing in the Covid era

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He’s worked with some of the fastest Formula 1 drivers in the history of the sport – the roll call includes Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso – yet when McLaren racing director Andrea Stella (49) responds to interview questions he does so in a deliberate fashion, the words pronounced with an almost melodious ring, yet his thoughts drawing inevitable engineering comparisons.

He comes across as exceptionally modest man – discussions with team personnel bear out his humility – who joined McLaren from Ferrari as head of race operations in the wake of Fernando Alonso’s transfer in 2015. Promoted to his present position in February, Stella doesn’t give many interviews, and after our 30-minute call is completed communications manager Charlotte Sefton tells me ours is his first interview of the year.

Our conversation focuses on the Covid-19 situation for two reasons: His was the team affected by a positive test in Australia, which in turn led to the race being cancelled and has been heavily involved in formulating F1’s protocols and procedures – within the team and the greater sport. Thus, the Italian aerospace graduate (Sapienza University, Rome) is ideally placed to comment on the overall disruption caused by the pathogen.

Stella – pictured pre-Covid – joined McLaren in 2015
In engineer-speak Stella says that the biggest problem facing F1 in this regard is that, “There’s a degree of non-linearity (for which read ‘unpredictability’), which sets a challenge in terms of how conservative do you want to be to prevent a problem.

“Then there’s another element of non-linearity, in that actually the problem may manifest itself with some delay.” Thus, he says, “You don’t control little changes and you don’t control the timeline.”

During its various shutdown periods earlier this year F1 formulated, “A multi-dimensional working group that included all team elements, including logistics and race engineering department performance because we don’t want to compromise performance.

“You can take it all the way [at one extreme], you shut down everything, everyone will wear the mask, everyone will eat alone, everyone flies alone, and you don’t have a problem. But you can’t work…”

Thus they worked out all the so-called “mitigation protocols” covering movement and operations, and given the fact that only a single F1 pass-holder – driver Sergio Perez, who headed to Mexico between races to visit his mother – has tested positive in the over 40,000 tests conducted to date proves that the protocols have been outstandingly effective.

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Stella is full of praise for the FIA and F1, but adds that, “At the same time we needed to think specific protocols and specific situations for our team. For example, before we go to any race we have our protocols which are updated for every race, considering the specific situation at the venue, considering some logistic difficulties.

Lando Norris, McLaren, 2020
Donning a mask is just one of many necessary precautions
“So somewhere we prefer to fly charter, to some other places we thought ‘Maybe here we can go commercial, let’s see.’

“But I give you one element of difficulty, for example: We can go commercial to Belgium, you book the tickets one-and-a-half months before and organise your logistics because the earlier you organise your logistics, the more efficient you are.

“But in one-and-a-half months things change completely, so you need to adapt. So I hope this gives you the sense, gradually, of the immense overhead that this situation has created. For example, in relation to my work, we could agree to go charter everywhere.

“Then maybe finance come to us and say ‘Yeah, good point, but who’s going to pay for that?’ So that should give you the sense of the multi-dimensional aspects. Essentially you have to spend a lot of time in defining every choice that contribute to create the right trade-off between minimising the risk but still maximising performance, and still making going to races enjoyable…and cost-effective.”

Although teams are presently restricted to 80 heads, Stella says that there has been no impact on performance as McLaren was already operating with under 60 race staff, with hospitality, media and marketing experiencing cut-backs, adding that the cap was arrived at in conjunction with the FIA, F1 and other teams.

Paddock, Spa-Francorchamps, 2020
Teams’ motorhomes returned at the Belgian Grand Prix
“I think they proved a really good level of collaboration. I attended some [meetings] directly, and I was really pleased to see how much, despite being in competition, how much all teams were aware, like ‘Guys, this is serious, we need to make F1 happen, because if we don’t, we have not only the sanitary [side], but we have a big problem in terms of sustainability.’”

What about the complexities created by the return of hospitality units from the Belgian Grand Prix onwards, I ask.

“You have more people around; you have people that are in a way on a different schedule,” he says. “If you think of the simplified version of the problem, you think ‘Ah, yes, there’s a bubble, they test negative, they travel together, they go back together.’

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“Then you start to defragment, then you see that actually there’s a lot of people that is not on the same schedule. There’s the early crew, there’s the crew left to build the motorhome. This increases the level of complexity dramatically and to deal with that there are unfortunately no shortcuts, it just means that you have to increase the number of meetings and the number of people that you have to put on the same page.”

The team’s Covid protocols are now well established
Regarding changes to internal communications, Stella says McLaren faced two choices: “You have to communicate, which means the communication needs to be granular enough to actually reach everyone, and make sure that everyone knows.

“You can communicate instructions, like ‘Guys, this is what we have to do,’ in a military way, or apply the modern ‘military way’ by communicating the intent of it.

“We define subgroups, we define conditions to have dinner together, we define conditions to work together on the car, then we try to translate [these] in simple rules. Above all, people need to understand the rationale, because we need to have a team of adult people who can take care of themselves and their mates. That’s the kind of team that we want to have at McLaren – adult people who are part of the solution.”

Stella has, though, been surprised at how efficiently communications have been despite a reduction in physical meetings.

“I would say the technical, operational communications, even political [discussions], have been almost a surprise for how efficiently you can work with [conferencing] tools. Even during lockdown, like I said when we were having these Covid-related working groups or now in our technical meetings, we discover some positives [with videoconferencing].

“People tend to be more punctual, people tend to be more to the point, there’s much less distraction.”

All well and good, but what are the negatives?

“I think we are experiencing this right in this conversation – I’m here with the mask, so you lose a lot of my non-verbal [gestures] and what your faces says when you communicate, the body language which according to some theories is more than what you actually say with your words!”

Our conversation takes place following Carlos Sainz Jnr’s pre-race retirement at Spa-Francorchamps. This resulted from a power unit glitch which caused an exhaust failure. It’s an example of the kind of interactions between team and supplier which Covid has made more difficult.

“For example, this morning I had a good conversation with a Renault, and that needed to be conversed in person. You deal with all the subtleties, and you really make sure that we agree. It can happen [with video], but you lose a little bit, I think”

Modern F1 is all about sporting entertainment, but its future depends upon sustainability and its contributions to society. While the sport has clearly adjusted incredibly well in a compressed time frame – indeed, by many estimates better than most if not all similar activities – I wonder what lessons the sport has learned through Covid-19 that can be applied to the wider world.

“We did multiple races at the same venue; very entertaining and actually the races were completely different. I think in difficult times it was a good way of accumulating races and still making [F1] entertaining.

“For example, with [a few] changes in terms of tyre allocation for Silverstone we created the second race, the soft was unusable, but it was a good race. So, you can make slight adjustments and still have a lot of races.”

Covid highlighted ways F1 can cut its carbon footprint
The team’s race logistics department reports to Stella, as does the unit responsible for the hospitality centre, which makes his subsequent comments all the more revealing.

“Obviously this [the glitz and glamour] is how you intend Formula 1 [to be], but I think the whole point about hospitality units and a machine that moves together with F1, if you see what F1 have set as carbon footprint objectives, at the moment we are miles away from that,” he says.

“I think it was interesting to see a move [away from] that direction.” Stressing that what follows is a personal opinion, he adds, “Overall Formula 1 doesn’t need to have 20 trailers, 20 trucks per team just to build a motorhome. I think that’s not the right message, that’s not compatible with the objectives of sustainability that are set by F1.”

Of course this is partly an unavoidable consequence in an international sport which by its very nature crosses more borders than others – albeit far fewer this year than pre-Covid.

“For the reasons [outlined] before, like people on a different schedule, you move around the world, it’s a circus. It’s not like the NBA, they’re staying in the same location. But we move around the world, we fly, we need to be connected with factories, it’s an incredibly dynamic system, which somehow we’re trying to make compatible with Covid.

“I hope the Covid crisis will be resolved soon, but it shows that when you approach it with the right expertise, with the right commitment from the parties, even if these parties are competing with each other, co-ordination, like I said before: a couple of months before we (re)started the season there were already meetings with the FIA, F1, teams, and so on. You can do it.

“It’s an example and also a very useful accumulation of expertise, which can be somehow used. Yesterday, when I brought my son to the school, I used the expertise I developed, and I said: ‘You know, you talk about a bubble’, and I explained what a bubble is: ‘You want to keep the kids one metre away from each other, you can use the mask, but please give them every 30 minutes the opportunity to remove the mask.’

“In Formula 1 now there is an immense expertise on coping with this. And I’m wondering how can we use this expertise for the benefit beyond Formula 1…”

Lando Norris, McLaren, Mugello, 2020
Stella isn’t keen on a repeat of nine races in 11 weeks
Are there, though, some downsides to what F1 has learned through Covid-19, for example the number of races that can be crammed into a ten-week period? What if F1 now decides that a run of nine races in three 11 weeks is do-able?

“That’s a scary scenario!” Andrea says without a second’s pause for reflection. “Somehow it takes us back to what I said before: hopefully we will be able to do 17, 18 races [a 17-round calendar was later confirmed], but some of them not at the same venue. When they happen at the same venue, it’s more sustainable.

“You don’t have to take a flight, you settle [in], you understand how you move, even in relation to Covid. The cars, you don’t need to have the mechanics going trackside on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Thursday are also a little bit lighter because the garage is ready, the cars are pretty much ready.

“So it’s much lighter.”

He is, however, acutely concerned about long-term impact: “If someone said ‘Ah, we did 17 races in four months, we can do the double that in eight months!’ that’s too simplistic, and you can’t miss the complexity and the reasoning why we have been able to do that.

“I think the problem of sustainability in Formula 1 for personnel is a very serious problem. If we go in that direction, we have to cope with that appropriately.

“For example, at McLaren we have created a function within the race team, which is about human performance and sustainability. There’s somebody in charge of sustainability, which also means continuity of people.

“Continuity of people means you are going to have fewer problems because to do a pit stop, you can’t change the guys every race. You’re never going to be on top of pit stops. Or to build a car. You can’t change the mechanics who build the car. You’re going to have a problem.”

That, in a nutshell defines Stella’s role as McLaren’s racing director: eliminate any problems that could cause a drop off in performance. Much as engineering is a science, so is management – and this most scientific of engineers clearly applies his background not only to car performance but to human performance, with the challenges brought about by Covid-19 being just another challenge to be resolved.

Stella also gave us the benefit of his insight into how McLaren’s drivers compare with past world champions he has worked with such as Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen – which proves every bit as illuminating as his analysis of Covid-19.

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4 comments on “How McLaren is meeting the unexpected challenges of racing in the Covid era”

  1. Not just here as many others do it, but don’t know what’s interesting about pandemic talk. We all know or can imagine what it implies. There is so much else that’s I’d rather be hearing about. Progress of the team, new direction, pipeline projects, lessons learned, new Concorde, etc.

    1. Take the pandemic part as just background to have a talk with an engineer deep into the structure of F1 @balue, and I think you can enjoy it far more.

      Stella is not one of those who works on the policies and new direction for the team. But from what the says you can see a lot of what IS going on in the background, where they are putting the work towards etc.

      1. @bascb Yes there are nuggets, but he’s the racing director who is right at the top and of course well in the loop. I think McLaren is one of the one team we are most curious about as it’s really pointing up lately, so would interesting to hear about the reasons for that. It doesn’t all have to be about structure and logistics.

        Not bashing here, just saying.

  2. I really LOVED this interview @dieterrencken. Great to read about the thoughts and ideas that live within F1. This kind of stuff, with huge real world lessons that I am sure can be transferred to various extents to other activities we as humans perform on our planet is what really amazes me the most about F1 and the finetuning this sport is able to get out of their participants in all kinds of fields.

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