The end of the year is approaching, and so is Christmas, it's time for gifts and well-stocked feasts. At McLaren, Santa Claus arrived a few days early and gave the British team a first Constructors' title since 1998, following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. A crown acquired at the end of tremendous progress over the last two seasons. But beware of excess gluttony in the ranks of the Papayas!
Indeed, after the joy and festivities, a worry invades Andrea Stella. The McLaren Team Principal fears that his team, crowned with a first title in 26 years, will relax or even be tempted to look elsewhere. The Italian manager is particularly concerned about certain approaches from rival teams who could try to recruit personnel from McLaren, or even disrupt the functioning of the Woking team, with the aim of destabilizing the English team before 2025.
Thus, to avoid any temptation to relax or desire elsewhere, Andrea Stella launched a new internal philosophy at McLaren, with the metaphor of “poisoned cookies”. A term to warn one's team against external disturbances or complacency with other teams. The Italian believes this message will be crucial for McLaren to achieve lasting success in Formula 1.
McLaren wants to start 2025 “ as if we had lost in 2024
“Refusing poisoned cookies is one of the fundamental elements of verifying and validating that the culture we have created is not just a matter of words, but that it exists in real life, explained the McLaren team director, after Abu Dhabi. We will always have poisoned cookies offered at our camp. We will always have poisoned cookies with the aim of creating divisions, of breaking down the cohesion we have in the team. »
“But we say every day that we are not going to accept these poisoned cookies. It would be very naive and very arrogant to think that, because we have won, we are perfect, we can relax and think that we are entitled to everything, just because we are world champions. There is nothing new: I think the best philosophy is to start [la saison 2025] as if we had lost and that's what we are going to do to prepare for next season. »
In Formula 1, it is not uncommon for certain key elements of a functioning team to be contacted by rival teams. Recently, certain teams have achieved some successes: at Aston Martin for example, the arrivals of Adrian Newey (ex-Red Bull), Andy Cowell (ex-Mercedes) and Enrico Cardile (ex-Ferrari) have were three of the biggest transfers of the 2024 season. McLaren's dazzling success this season will inevitably attract the attention of rival teams, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull in the first place. A way to weaken the opponent while strengthening yourself internally, with sometimes very attractive offers in terms of salary. This holiday season, Papayas will still have to be careful about what they eat…
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