Alonso: In a way, I brought Stella to McLaren

Alonso raced for Ferrari between 2010 and 2014, and during the period, Stella was his race engineer, but the Spaniard left for McLaren and the Italian followed him as took over the role of the team's Head of Race Operations.

Stella then became Performance Director in 2018 and in 2019 became Executive Director - Racing as the team continued to morph under the leadership of CEO Zak Brown. He became team principal in 2022 replacing Andreas Seidl who left for Sauber.

McLaren went from strength to strength on Stella's watch and that culminated in the team's first F1 constructors' championship since 1998.

Alonso was happy for his former race engineer, he said of McLaren's triumph at the end of the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: "Yeah, fantastic. I'm a good friend of Zak [Brown] and a very good friend of Andrea.

"In a way, I brought him to McLaren when I joined McLaren, so I told him before the race: 'What Abu Dhabi took from our hands in 2010, hopefully today gives something back to you.'

"And it did, so I'm happy for him. He deserves it, he's a very clever guy and McLaren is an example for many teams now.

"Zak is a very good friend of mine, we will spend some days together in the next few weeks and we'll have some fun with track days," Alonso revealed.

The two-time F1 champion was hinting at the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix where he missed out on a third F1 title with Ferrari who covered Red Bull's Mark Webber with their race strategy which meant Alonso was stuck behind Renault's Vitaly Petrov all race long which allowed Sebastian Vettel to clinch his maiden F1 title despite being the outsider in the title fight.

As for Alonso's current team, Aston Martin, they have struggled in 2024 and finished fifth in constructors' standings with 94 points having scored 280 in 2023 with Alonso bagging eight podiums for them before their performance dwindled.

Aston Martin should try and find a huge jump in performance like McLaren did midseason in 2023, he explained: "The biggest change was last year.

"McLaren did not do much in 2019, 2020, 2021 or 2022. They did not do much in 2023 until Austria when they were on the podium.

"In Austria they introduced a package that they gained six or seven tenths with, and that was the beginning of a series of packages that made their car the fastest, eventually.

"That Austria package, if we want to call it that, is something we need to work on," Alonso concluded.

The good news for Aston Martin is that Adrian Newey will join them in 2025 with his focus being on their 2026 single seater under the new regulations.