How have McLaren improved so quickly? 'It didn't happen overnight'

Over the last five years, McLaren have finished either fourth or fifth in the Constructors, aside from 2020 when they finished third. As the F1 season hits the halfway mark, they now sit third, just seven points behind Ferrari. The team has also featured on the podium consistently since the Chinese Grand Prix, with Lando Norris also achieving his maiden win in Miami, where the team introduced a significant upgrades package. Nevertheless, this improvement has not happened over night, as Priestley explained: "The reason it is all happening is not just as a result of the last six months, it's the result of the last five years and of a lot of work that has gone on behind the scenes in terms of building the right personnel and putting the right people in place," he said.

Priestley knows exactly how McLaren works, having worked with the team between 2000 and 2009. Since then though, Zak Brown has become the CEO of McLaren Racing, and has continued to make changes to the team. These changes included bringing Norris in as a rookie in 2019, and then later replacing Daniel Ricciardo with rookie Oscar Piastri in 2023. In the same season, Andrea Stella also became the team principal for McLaren. The team now seem to have found a good structure, and it is these changes which have helped them to do that: "You've seen a lot of people come and go at McLaren particularly around the management structure so they've tried things, some have worked, some haven't. That's a learning process and they've gradually found the right structure of people to build an organisation with the right processes and procedures in place as well that generates a culture that means everybody's happy," Priestley shared.

"It's the five years of work that gives you the success it's just that the outside world only sees it in the last couple of months so I think it's testament to Zak and the management team that are there Andrea as well but everybody who've worked so hard and gone through a huge amount of pain and suffering if we're honest to get to where they are now and I'm really pleased."

Could McLaren become champions this season?

With their strong performance, McLaren certainly appear to be title contenders. They first featured on the podium this season when Norris finished third in Australia. Since China, either Norris or Piastri have made it onto the podium too. Eddie Jordan has even predicted he expects Oscar Piastri to become a world champion in the not too distant future. Although they have made some wrong strategy decisions this season, Priestley remains confident in their abilities: "I genuinely think they could challenge for potentially the Constructors Championship this year because they've got two drivers consistently scoring points," he revealed. "They certainly have the potential next year though, when we've got the last year of this stable regulations as they're kind of peaking potentially at the right time before everything changes and resets again in '26," he concluded.