It’s the tiniest, almost unnoticeable details that sometimes tell you the most about someone. Whenever you see Andrea Stella in the paddock on a race Sunday, wearing team kit – a papaya-coloured jacket or a polo – you may spot a pin badge on his chest, always on the left-hand side. It’s a Gil de Ferran helmet.
“Gil was the first person I talked to when the proposal to become team principal came up,” Stella told us last year in Abu Dhabi, after McLaren clinched their first constructors’ title since 1998. "Because of his friendship, because of his wisdom and because of his incredible qualities at a human level, his intelligence, and he was and has always been a great racer.
