Red Mist: Why McLaren’s Stella sees Ferrari as the big threat

Stella began as a performance engineer before becoming race engineer to Kimi Räikkönen in 2009 and then for Fernando Alonso from 2010 to 2014. After that, he moved to McLaren as head of race operations in 2015.

Elevated to McLaren performance director in 2018 and then racing director in 2019, he took over as team principal in 2023 before leading the Woking team to its first World Constructors' Championship in 26 years in 2024. So Andrea Stella knows what he’s talking about—both as McLaren boss and as a major player at Ferrari for many a season.

All of which makes his recent observations of his former team rather interesting. Under team principal Stella’s tenure, McLaren seems a slam dunk for both the Driver’s and Constructors' titles this year, thanks to a seemingly never-ending series of upgrades to the 2025 MCL39. But he sees a fresh red threat for the rest of the season.

“Looking at the lap times that Ferrari was able to pull off in every recent session, they now seem to be our strongest threat,” Stella points out. “Ferrari has probably become our strongest rival. I think they could be an even bigger challenge than Verstappen through the second half.

“The gaps were very small towards the end of the first half of the season. It’s difficult to say which one was the strongest team, but Ferrari definitely appears to be the most competitive. It looks like the upgrades Ferrari took to Austria worked very well. So I’d say that the remainder of the championship will be very interesting with Ferrari.”

Stella’s comments were based on Ferrari’s significant floor upgrade at the British Grand Prix, since when the red team also trotted out a revised rear suspension at a ‘Fiorano filming day’ last week. The geometry changes are said to allow the SF-25 to run lower and maximise ground effect downforce, and are expected to debut at Spa this weekend.

Ferrari has not yet won a Grand Prix in 2025. But judging by ex-team race engineer and present-day McLaren team boss Andrea Stella’s observations, it seems McLaren has reason to be concerned that Ferrari improved enough to regularly fight for victory for the rest of 2025.

Roll on Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday! And of course, Forza Ferrari!