McLaren reveal ‘forest grows in silence’ mantra after recent 'tree falling' noise

Andrea Stella has detailed a key McLaren ethos, which focuses on maximising learning opportunities and taking positives from situations it could have handled better.

Having made notable strategy mistakes in recent rounds, namely at Silverstone and the Hungaroring, close attention is being paid to how McLaren responds to setbacks.

Meanwhile, its team principal maintains it is taking the positives from such scenarios and fostering a constructive environment as it builds towards championship contention.

The Woking team narrowly avoided team-mate drama between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri during last month's Hungarian Grand Prix, and was widely considered to have been the architect of the difficult situation - something many have argued took the glean off Piastri's maiden grand prix win and an impressive one-two finish for the team.

With the two papaya cars comfortably in control of the race in Budapest, McLaren opted to pit Norris first to prevent being undercut by Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen behind - a "twist" Stella confirmed was the best way to guarantee the one-two finish.

However, by defying the usual convention of pitting the leading car first, it allowed Piastri to be undercut by his team-mate, with Norris subsequently hesitant to give the position back.

Whilst he did ultimately acquiesce with team orders, Norris' awkward team radio exchange with race engineer Will Joseph highlight how much McLaren had to convince him and how much it had miscalculated the situation.

Had Norris not given way, the team still would have scored a one-two finish, but it may have led to considerable consequences within the squad. In spite of this, Stella remained set on capitalising on McLaren's "maximise the learning" approach.

"We say at McLaren internally, what's important is that we keep building, building, building and building," the Italian began to explain to media including RacingNews365.

"And sometimes when you have a tree falling, even if it's very loud, actually what's important is to think about the forest growing, which is silent - and sometimes, this tree falling gives you so much information to help the forest grow. 

"So, this is my takeaway [from the Hungarian Grand Prix episode], which I share with you pretty openly, but that's a good reflection of the culture we have at McLaren."

'Never find yourself preparing the flight plan as you fly'

Stella as quick to point out that had Norris accepted the team orders straight away, he would have had some 20 laps to battle with Piastri on track, a fight he may well have come out on top of.

The 53-year-old also highlighted the area in which he and the team at large could have done better, contending that what unfolded was an "undiscussed" scenario.

"One point that we definitely take on board is that we should prepared the situation better, before the race, so that you never find yourself preparing the flight plan as you fly," said Stella.

"That's a golden rule in any kind of challenging situation, and this is a responsibility of the team - it's my responsibility.

"We entered the race having planned many, many things, but this one actually was left undiscussed, so this is definitely something we take on board as a team."