What's this "poisoned biscuits" thing that McLaren and Stella want to avoid?

The end of the year is approaching, Christmas too, 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, at the end of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. A crown acquired at the end of a tremendous progression over the last two seasons. But beware of excess greed in the ranks of the Papayas!

Indeed, after the joy and the festivities, a worry invades Andrea Stella. The Team Principal of McLaren fears that his team, crowned with a first title in 26 years, will relax or even be tempted to look elsewhere. The Italian leader is particularly apprehensive about certain approaches from rival teams that 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.

So, to avoid any temptation to relax or to want to go elsewhere, Andrea Stella has launched a new internal philosophy at McLaren, with the metaphor of "poisoned biscuits". A term to warn his team against outside disruption or complacency with other teams. The Italian believes this message will be crucial for McLaren to enjoy sustained success in Formula 1.

McLaren wants to start 2025 " as if we had lost" in 2024.

“Refusing poisoned biscuits is one of the fundamental elements to verify and validate 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 poison cookies offered in our camp. We will always have poison cookies with the aim of creating divisions, of breaking the cohesion that we have in the team.

"But we say every day that we are not going to accept these poisoned biscuits. It would be very naive and very arrogant to think that, because we have won, we are perfect, we can relax and think that everything is owed to us, simply because we are world champions. There is nothing new: I think the best philosophy is to start [the 2025 season] as if we had lost and that is what we are going to do to prepare for next season."

In Formula 1, it is not uncommon for key elements of a successful team to be contacted by rival teams. Recently, some teams have managed to pull off a few war prizes: at Aston Martin for example, the arrivals of Adrian Newey (ex-Red Bull), by Andy Cowell (ex-Mercedes) and Enrico Cardile (ex-Ferrari) 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 internally, with sometimes very tempting offers in terms of salary. During this holiday season, the Papayas will still have to be careful about what they eat...

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