Jean Alesi backs Fred Vasseur as McLaren dismiss Andrea Stella speculation

Jean Alesi has backed Fred Vasseur amid speculation Ferrari could target Andrea Stella in a potential leadership shake-up triggered by GianPiero Lambiase’s McLaren move.

However, PlanetF1.com understands that Stella’s role at McLaren will remain unchanged and that he is not set for a surprise move to Maranello.

Jean Alesi supports Fred Vasseur amid Ferrari speculation

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McLaren announced earlier this month that Max Verstappen’s long-time race engineer Lambiase would join the team “no later than 2028” following a surprise move from Red Bull Racing.

Lambiase will reportedly take up the role of chief racing officer, working under team principal Stella.

However, there were reports ahead of the announcement that Lambiase’s arrival at McLaren would trigger Stella’s exit, with the Italian returning to his former team Ferrari.

Stella spent more than a decade with Ferrari, working his way up from performance engineer for the test team to performance engineer for Michael Schumacher, where he played a key role in the German’s last three world titles. He was key to Kimi Raikkonen’s 2007 success before working with Fernando Alonso.

In 2015, he moved to McLaren in the role of head of race operations before being promoted to team principal, securing the double for McLaren with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in 2025.

His success with McLaren has reportedly caught the attention of Ferrari.

But McLaren has no intention of letting go of its star team principal.

“Happy to share that GianPiero Lambiase will join the McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team as Chief Racing Officer, reporting into Team Principal Andrea Stella, when his contract ends no later than 2028,” said McLaren CEO Zak Brown.

“He joins an incredible team under Andrea’s leadership and I’m excited about what we can achieve together.”

But according to Ferrari legend Alesi, the Scuderia doesn’t need some different person driving the team forward – they have the perfect TP in Vasseur.

Although the Scuderia did not win a single grand prix last season and dropped from second to fourth in the final third of the championship, the team’s focus was entirely on F1 2026 and its new regulations.

F1 2026: The season’s winners and losers

The results of the F1 2026 championship

The F1 2026 Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship standings

Ferrari may not have come out on top in the early races, with Mercedes leading the way, but it is second best on track and will have the advantage of Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities [ADUO] to improve its power unit.

Alesi believes Vasseur is doing a great job at leading the team.

“Fred has been doing an excellent job from day one,” he told RacingNews365. “Being a team boss has to be incredible, I don’t know exactly what it’s like, but it has to be incredibly complex. At Ferrari it is a different story. It has been multiplied by 100 percent…

“I think it’s a combination of everything. At the moment there is not one person who can really make a difference within a Formula 1 structure. It’s incredible. When I look at a modern car, I think: oh my God.”

“You need a great technical expert in every part. Everyone has their own idea. It is very important to have a boss who brings everything together. That’s why Vasseur was very frustrated last year, because it was an incredibly tough task for him to keep everyone together.

“There was a lot of criticism of the team and of him, and that completely upset the balance within the team. Now it’s only the beginning of the season, but it looks like Ferrari is on the right track.”

Ferrari is second in the Constructors’ Championship, 45 points down on Mercedes, while Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton are third and fourth behind the Mercedes teammates.

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