McLaren chief executive Zak Brown has revealed that “conspiracy theories” ran riot at the team following his arrival in 2016, revealing that some staff members were “seeing ghosts.”

McLaren enter the F1 2025 season as the reigning Constructors’ Champions having lifted their first teams’ title in 26 years last season.

Zak Brown explains McLaren turnaround after ‘toxic’ atmosphere resolved

A combined six victories for Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri saw the Woking-based team see off the threat of Ferrari, who fell short by a final margin of 14 points at the title decider in Abu Dhabi.

McLaren’s return to title glory completed an impressive turnaround for the team, who went nine years without a race victory between 2012 and 2021.

Brown initially joined McLaren as executive director at the end of 2016, the second year of the team’s disastrous three-year partnership with Honda, before rising to the role of CEO in 2018.

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The American has overseen an astonishing transformation of the team over the course of more than eight years in charge.

Appearing on the James Allen podcast, Brown has revealed that things were “a lot worse” than he expected when he arrived at the McLaren Technology Centre, where a “toxic” atmosphere prevailed among staff on the shop floor.

He said: “It was a lot worse than I thought.

“I came in knowing that things weren’t in great shape. You could see the [lack of] brands on the car, you could see the results.

“But once I arrived, I realised it was really bad and I had never run a Formula 1 team before. I’d been around Formula 1 my whole life.

“I was used to an organisation of that size – we had about 1,200, 1,300 people in the [PR] agency I came from – so the size wasn’t an issue, but the departments and the skillsets were definitely mostly out of my area of expertise.

“I went about first tackling the commercial side, because that’s where I was most comfortable, and we needed a lot of resources, so I knew that would be the biggest contribution I could make in the short term.

“I changed the majority of the leadership team, but one at a time [as] I got to know everyone and took a while to turn it around.

“It was pretty toxic on the shop floor as far as the politics and, as Andrea [Stella, team principal] calls it, poison biscuits. There were lots of poison biscuits being passed around.

“At the time. I think we were all convinced the problem was the [Honda] power unit.

“And while that was certainly a big contributor, that was not exclusively the issue and that became very clear once we changed [to a Renault customer engine in 2018] and the results got a little bit better.

“But we knew we had fundamental problems, so it was quite a daunting task to tackle but we got there in the end.”

Brown recalled an exchange he had with three members of McLaren’s gearbox department, who came to his office claiming that staff were saying “bad” things about him.

When probed, however, the trio were unable to provide any details.

Asked how he brought a change of culture to the team, he explained: “I think middle and upper management, as opposed to top management, are critical.

“We have about 1,300 people in all at McLaren Racing, about 1,000 of those on Formula 1, so the people that have the biggest influence with the largest group of people is that next layer of management that probably we touch 600 people in the organisation.

“It’s easy to put on a PowerPoint [and say] here’s what we want to be, you’ve got to walk the talk, but then you need to make sure that permeates through the entire organisation.

“I think we have been extremely transparent with our team, taking all the politics out of the team.

“I had an open door policy in the early days and I remember three guys from the gearbox [department] came in to see me and said: ‘We’re really concerned for you.’

“I was like: ‘Why is that?’

“I won’t name names, but they saw three people talking and [told me]: ‘It’s not good, we think it’s about you.’

“I was like: ‘Well, what did you hear?’

“‘Nothing, but we think it was bad.’

“This was the kind of conspiracy theories we’d have on the shop floor. It was the ghosts that people were seeing and the conspiracy theories on the shop floor.

“So we got that out of the system and very transparent, definitely a no-blame culture.”

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Brown believed McLaren’s no-blame culture was there for all to see at the F1 2024 title decider in Bahrain, where the team recovered from a poor run of races to secure the Constructors’ title as Norris dominated from pole position.

He said: “It’s so easy in the sport [and] it’s very frustrating that if you make a mistake – driver makes a mistake, strategy, tyre, mechanical – to get angry at that person and that’s very unhealthy.

“You win and lose together, it’s a team effort, so I think it’s been very healthy for the team that the last few races were really difficult for us.

“Qatar was obviously difficult for us; Brazil didn’t go our way; Vegas, we weren’t competitive.

“So right as everyone thought we probably had this thing wrapped up, we had 14 podiums in a row, and then three bad races leading into the last race.

“To have the team respond with a two-second pit stop when it counted in Abu Dhabi, I think, was the great resilience from the team.

“I think we’re going to be strong this year.”

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