McLaren boss on why Fernando Alonso failed to emulate the Michael Schumacher era with Ferrari

McLaren boss Andrea Stella feels one of the major reasons why Fernando Alonso was unable to emulate Michael Schumacher's success at Ferrari was the lack of continuity and stability.

Stella was part of the Italian outfit when the Spaniard moved to the team in 2010. The two forged a close relationship that ultimately saw the duo move to the Woking-based team in 2015.

While Fernando Alonso was at Ferrari, he came close to winning the title twice, in 2010 and 2012. On both those occasions, he lost out in the last race of the season.

When the Spaniard had joined the Italian team, many felt that he was going to emulate Michael Schumacher and his successful stint with the team. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

Talking about Ferrari and their dominant run with Schumacher, Andrea Stella felt that the major reason behind the outfit's success was stability and continuity. When Fernando Alonso joined the team in 2010, the team were unable to emulate that and hence lost out.

In his interview on Beyond the Grid podcast, Stella said:

"The seniority, the quality of the people involved; it was just extraordinary. I think some of them they even accepted to stay in a certain role, knowing that they were absolutely ready to pick one or two higher levels had they gone to another team, but they accepted to stay in that role because that's what was needed to create what was possibly the strongest team that we have seen in Formula 1."

He added:

"There was so much continuity in this journey where you keep identifying what you need to add and you keep building brick by brick. I think this is something that we sort of missed during the Fernando [Alonso] era. And we could have built it, but definitely would have needed a lot of continuity and this brick-by-brick approach that was established as of the mid 90's at Ferrari."

Stella trying to find success at McLaren which he couldn't with Fernando Alonso

Stella revealed that he was trying to do at McLaren with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri what he couldn't do at Ferrari with Fernando Alonso. He said:

"There are some elements of the script that haven't changed over the years, independently of the role that I've been on. And continuity and seniority, they do form part of this script. And this is what we are trying to do what McLaren as well."

McLaren have had an impressive turnaround this season but it remains to be seen how much the team can sustain this run.