Zak Brown took over a broken McLaren: Here’s how he fixed it

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown stepped into his role at the Woking outfit in 2018, after initially joining McLaren Technology Group in 2016 as executive director.

When he joined, the legendary constructor that had dominated Formula 1 with iconic names such as Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, and Mika Hakkinen was struggling towards the back of the grid.

The decline in performance was compounded by a number of other factors, including Ferrari’s staggering dominance with Michael Schumacher in the early 2000s, the infamous 2007 ‘Spygate’ which resulted in McLaren being fined $100 million after being found guilty of possessing Ferrari technical blueprints, and reliability issues during its partnership with Honda in the 2010s.

Fast forward to today, and McLaren is back celebrating at the top of the podium after securing its first constructors’ title since 1998 in 2024.

During a video with Bloomberg (below), Brown discussed the journey of bringing the team back to its former glory. He explained:

“So when I joined, we were ninth in the championship, [it] was the worst year in the history of McLaren.

“Our corporate partnerships were at a record low. Our morale was at a record low. Our fans were pretty upset with us. It was not a good environment, but I saw that all as opportunity, that it could kind of only go one way.

“So, to come to marketing, the first thing I felt I could do to help the team, was rebuild the commercial side of the sport, of our racing team. Because I knew if I could do that, I could bring in resources to let the technical team get a new wind tunnel, new CFD, new manufacturing facility, because we had fallen behind in technology.

“So, I immediately went to where I was most comfortable, which was making a commercial difference. I knew that McLaren was this mega brand, mega team. That made it easier to bring in partners and share with them the vision of where we were going.

“Started doing that, which then made the technical team happy because I was starting to give them more toys to work with. It took some time, but I believe sport in the world is all about momentum, and I needed to reverse this downward momentum and get the kind of the snowball picking up pace going the other way.

“And, you know, I’ve been here now eight years. The first two years felt like eight years. And these eight years now feels like two years. Because now it’s fun and we’re winning races on a regular basis.”

When asked how McLaren Racing works symbiotically with the McLaren car company, Brown clarified:

“So, our automotive company, it was interesting, Ferrari built road cars to go racing way back when. We’re a racing team that now builds road cars. And, you know, we’re all about technology, we’re all about innovation.

“So when you buy a supercar, you buy them for different reasons. A McLaren, you’re buying for the technology and the forward thinking. And there’s a real passion between our automotive customer base who love our Formula 1 team.

“And then our Formula 1 team, not everyone can afford a McLaren, but it’s very aspirational. So we work very closely together.

“We leverage our dealer network to talk to our high-end customers. And so we’re very much collaborating, you’ll very rarely see a McLaren road car without a Formula 1 car next to it. And vice versa.

“Because we do share a brand, we’re two separate companies with common ownership. But the businesses are different. But I think we have a lot of commonality in how we bring our brand to market, how we engage with our fans, and our drivers love them.”