Italian Andrea Stella was Ferrari’s top engineer and Fernando Alonso’s chief engineer for consecutive years before following the Spaniard to McLaren-Honda in 2015. He has since risen through the ranks of the Woking team and is now race director – as McLaren has officially announced.

In his first statements as McLaren manager, Stella emphasized, among other things: “We are realistic about the amount of work that will be required to return to its top positions Network, but I am excited and optimistic that I am on this journey with a team full of talent, experience, competitiveness and dedication.”

As well as upgrading Stella, the England team also announced the departure of Andreas Siddle as match director. Shortly thereafter, Siedl was announced by Alfa Romeo/Sauber for 2023, which is no surprise given that the German was Porsche’s WEC race director with three straight victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Porsche is part of the Volkswagen Group, as is Audi, which has announced it will enter Formula 1 in 2026 by buying Sauber – which will race under the Alfa Romeo F1 name until the end of 2023. That is why Seidl is a man of absolute trust and respect for the Germans.

However, Siddle is not a direct replacement for Frederik Vasser, who was announced this morning by Ferrari as the successor to Mattia Binotto at Scuderia’s race board from January 9, 2023.

Siedl will officially become CEO of the Sauber Group, which will be renamed Audi F1 in 2026. As such, he will help build the Audi team over the next three years and choose the new race director.

We remind you that recent authoritative Italian publications spoke of contacts between Audi and Mattia Binotto. So this is likely an open-ended scenario of Binotto moving to Hineville. However, the Italian can be obligated by a Ferrari clause not to work for another team for a respectable period of time. That doesn’t stop him from working behind the scenes for Audi and being officially announced by the team in 2026.

Siddle, on the other hand, is returning to Hineville where he began his career as a Sauber engineer before moving to Porsche to head up the WEC racing department. And now, on his return to Sauber, he’s been promoted to managing director – one position above race director.

Following the announcements by Sauber, Audi also released their own announcement, welcoming Andreas Siddle to the team that will soon be a part. He spoke of recruitment as “promising” and continued:

“We welcome the choice of our future partner [Sauber]. Andreas Siddle has extensive experience in managerial positions in motorsport, both on the manufacturer and team side. F1 His achievements in motorsport are impressive.”

Following today’s announcements, it also emerged that Siddle had informed McLaren that he was leaving Woking to take up a managerial role with the Audi team in 2026 when his contract with the team expires at the end of 2025.

But everything was rushed – with a compromise reached between McLaren and Sauber – when they realized Fred Wasser was going to Ferrari. McLaren F1 CEO Zach Brown even called it “understandable given Andreas’ background” with the Volkswagen Group.

“The first person I thought of back then was Stella.” Brown continued. “When it became known that water would go Ferrari, its owner Clean Fin Rausing, whom I have known for a decade and with whom we have a very good relationship, called me to see if we could talk about a possible early release of Andreas.

I thought that if Stella were ready to become the team’s sporting director, I would happily make that move now, which I believe puts everyone in their permanent positions for years to come. Andrea Stella was always our first choice to take the team forward and after that everything happened very quickly.”concluded the McLaren commander.