Determined Audi F1 team fast-tracked Seidl's McLaren exit

F1

Zak Brown has shed light on how Andreas Seidl's Audi switch came about, and how an old business associate intervened to speed up the process

Audi F1 team boss Andreas Seidl

Seidl is making an early switch from McLaren to Sauber-Audi

Sauber

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McLaren CEO Zak Brown has revealed that he and the Sauber F1 team brokered a mid-season deal to fast-track Andreas Seidl’s transfer in readiness for its Audi takeover.

Seidl told Brown last summer that he was planning to leave as team principal and move to Sauber at the end of his contract in three years’ time. But after a personal intervention from Sauber’s owner, Brown was persuaded to release Seidl early.

He is due to start work as CEO of Alfa Romeo-branded Sauber in January and will lead the team towards a partnership with Audi, beginning in 2026.

“Andreas, in a very transparent manner, informed me during the season he was going” Zak Brown

It is one of several team boss moves announced this week: Frederic Vasseur, is leaving his team principal job at Sauber to take on the same role at Ferrari, while Jost Capito has stepped down as Williams boss.

“Andreas, in a very transparent manner, informed me during the season that he was going to go elsewhere when his contract was up at the end of 2025,” said Brown. “[It was] pretty clear where that destination would be, which was quite understandable given his background.

“At that time we intended to continue for the foreseeable future as the relationship is very healthy and his work discipline is very strong.

“What we were going to do at that point was at the end of the season let the world know that the change would come in at the end of the ’25 season.”

Zak Brown wearing headset

Brown looked within his own team for Seidl replacement

Antonin Vincent / DPPI

Seidl’s move to the future Audi team is logical due to his previous involvement with another VW brand, Porsche, in leading its LMP1 WEC team.

However, Brown said an old business associate soon called after the initial deal, when other team boss market movements occurred. The intervention managed to negotiate the speeding-up of the process of reuniting Seidl with his old employers.

“In the fast pace of the Formula 1 environment, when it became clear that Fred [Vasseur] was going to go to Ferrari, Finn Rausing [Sauber team owner], who is someone that I’ve known for a decade and get along with very well, gave me a call to see if there was a discussion to be had to potentially release Andreas early.

“My reaction was that if Andrea [Stella] would be happy to join [McLaren] as team principal, then I’d be very happy to make that change now, which I think puts everyone in their permanent homes for the foreseeable future.

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It isn’t known whether Seidl’s contract included a payoff for McLaren. “There are ways to dissolve relationships where you can do things on very workable terms for for for everyone,” was Brown’s response when asked.

“And after we intended to go public [with the initial plan], the first person I was going to call to see if they would lead McLaren’s Formula 1 team is the gentleman sitting next to me [Stella].

“After some good conversations, Andrea kindly accepted the role, which then put us in a very comfortable position to move forward.”

Coming from an engineering background, Stella has a wealth of experience at the race track. Having engineered Michael Schumacher and Kimi Räikkönen at Ferrari, he then moved into more senior roles at Maranello before making the switch to McLaren.

The Italian, who is stepping up from executive director of racing to running the team overall, explained what he had learnt from the illustrious roll call of F1 principals he had worked under.

“When you can work together with strong personalities, very capable people, there’s there’s a lot to learn,” he said.

Andrea Stella McLaren team boss

Stella is stepping up to become new McLaren F1 leader

DPPI

“Jean [Todt]: his incredible dedication to the team, and to his role, I think it’s something that gave me a bit of an imprinting of what it means to be committed early on in my career.

“Stefano [Domenicali] is definitely the people person – and F1 is about engineering operations, but is ultimately very much about people. I understood some elements and qualities that you need to take highly regarded as it in principle, and also some ways of interacting with people based on respect, listening.

“Andreas Seidl, we’ve worked if anything more closely, I think he also brought some engineering experience from previous periods – I think this was very useful for me also in shaping up the race team.”