Stella reveals key design targets of their dominant MCL39
On the back of an utterly dominant showing so far in 2025, McLaren team boss Andrea Stella has revealed the key design targets the Woking-based outfit had wanted to achieve with its MCL39.
Having ended last season by displaying dominant performance, McLaren's 2025 F1 car, the MCL39 was the first McLaren car to be fully overseen by former Red Bull chief designer Rob Marshall, and it exhibited numerous technical improvements over its predecessor.
The MCL39 displayed dominant form during pre-season testing in Bahrain, and it carried this form over into the season, with Oscar Piastri leading his team-mate Lando Norris in the drivers' championship, and the papaya outfit enjoying an enormous margin over its rivals in the teams' standings.
As of the Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren has scored podiums in all races except the Canadian Grand Prix. Between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, McLaren achieved seven 1-2 finishes in China, Miami, Spain, Austria, Great Britain, Belgium and Hungary.
McLaren's current streak of four consecutive 1-2 finishes beginning in Austria was the first instance of such since Mercedes achieved five consecutive 1-2 finishes in 2019.
Reflecting on McLaren's current F1 car, the MCL39's performance, team boss Andrea Stella revealed that the British outfit took unprecedented engineering risks during the design phase of its field-leading F1 machine.
“The team is currently in a position where we can take this sort of engineering risk, and then we will learn along the way. With this objective in mind, we have innovated pretty much every single area and gained efficiency.
"And I think results we see on track is the result of this one extra reason for the entire team to be proud of what we have achieved," the Italian added.
Pressed on to reveal what the key design targets with the MCL39, Stella stated that the Woking-based had mainly focused on aerodynamic efficiency and better tyre management.
“Cooling efficiency, high downforce generation with minimal drag, and strong tyre interaction," revealed Stella when explaining the philosophy behind the car's design.
