McLaren lyrical over poached former Red Bull chief: 'He's so impressive'
F1 News
- Cas van de Kleut
Rob Marshall joined McLaren in 2024, bringing a wealth of experience from his previous role as a key figure at Red Bull Racing. Andrea Stella expressed his satisfaction with Marshall’s contributions, telling GPblog and others that the chief designer will play a pivotal role in shaping McLaren’s cars in the years ahead.
From 2006 to May 2023, Marshall was a major force within Red Bull Racing. The Briton worked as a chief designer with Adrian Newey before becoming Chief Engineering Officer in 2016. He contributed massively to Sebastian Vettel's years of success with the Milton Keynes-based team.
Stella: 'Marshall has a wealth of experience'
After a gardening leave, in effect since May 30 2023, Marshall joined McLaren for 2024. This is where he has made a good impression so far, Stella says: "Rob came with a wealth of experience, knowledge from a technical point-of-view, with a reputation. And I have to say that working with him, myself, the other technical directors, the entire technical team, if anything, we have been impressed even more than what we expected because of these qualities, like the knowledge of how you design a car, especially from a car layout point-of-view," team principal Andrea Stella explained.
The Italian continued: "And this is very important for 2025, and this will be very important for 2026. Like I'm sitting next to Rob here, and while I sit next to him and I see him working on the screen, I said like, ‘It was really a good idea to get Rob’ because he's doing all the work in terms of layout for ‘25, ‘26 and we did miss this kind of role at McLaren before."
Finally, Stella said that Marshall brings huge motivation to the whole McLaren squad, highlighting his efforts on all fronts. "In addition to that, Rob brings fantastic human qualities, a very positive person, everyone enjoys working with him, he is full of energy. You can see him in the garage, and very often, he's lying under the car, on the ground. Everyone appreciates his incredible knowledge, but at the same time, his hands, and sometimes even his head, are dirty because he was with his hands on the parts. So that's something that we did miss before, and we are glad that now we have it in the personnel room."
This article was written in collaboration with Toby Nixon
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