INTERVIEW: Zak Brown's "state of disbelief” at McLaren’s championship lead

It has been a remarkable 26 years since the storied organisation won the last of its eight constructors' titles. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, McLaren enjoyed unbridled success, claiming seven of those championships, and with some legendary names at the wheel such as Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Niki Lauda, and Mika Häkkinen.

It was very nearly nine championships in 2007 but McLaren was found guilty in the 'Spygate' affair, resulting in its exclusion from the standings, and stripped of all points.

Lewis Hamilton may have won the drivers' title for the team the season after, but since then, the years have not been kind to McLaren as they endured a period of boardroom upheaval the following decade before almost going out of business in 2020.

Brown joined McLaren in late 2016 as executive director of the Technology Group before taking up his current role 18 months later. He was left aghast at the state in which he found the racing team.

"I walked in not understanding how bad it was because I grew up around McLaren, and it was like the almighty McLaren," Brown said, in an interview with this writer for The New York Times. "It can’t be that bad.

"But I found, in no particular order, a team that had had its worst year in the history of McLaren; a blank race car with record-low sponsorship; drivers that didn’t want to drive for us; and a very disgruntled workforce that lacked leadership, so it was every person for themselves.”

"There was a lot of blame, a lot of conspiracy theories and a lack of trust. Other than that, the place was great! But it became very evident that we had no direction, had lost our way, and hence the results, the chaos, the negativity.

"It took some time to get that course-corrected, make some changes, put a whole new leadership team in place, one step at a time."

By the end of 2019, two years after finishing a team record-equalling low of ninth in the constructors' championship, light could be seen at the end of what had been a long, dark tunnel.

Carlos Sainz's third in the penultimate race of that year in Brazil was McLaren's first podium finish since the opening grand prix of 2014 in Australia. The malaise lasted that long. As Brown said, the team was "going in the right direction," and it had "momentum."

But then came 2020 and Covid. F1 found a way to fight on through a virus that for a period of time had a stranglehold on the world, albeit via stringent protocols, most notably underlined by the fact there were no fans in the grandstands at many of the races.

McLaren played its part, but it also very nearly paid a heavy price. "When I started, we were losing more than £100 million a year,” Brown said. "I was sheltering the team, saying, ‘Everything’s great,’ but not everything was great. We were in big financial trouble.”

"Right as we were turning the corner on track, and turning the corner financially off it, we got hit. Sponsorship stopped, prize money was significantly reduced. It almost put us out of business. We were a month or two away. We were that close."

Staff were made redundant and heritage assets were sold to help alleviate the issue. Crucially, it required the sale of a 15 per cent stake in the team to New York sports investment group MSP Sports Capital for £185 million, and the purchase of its Technology Centre headquarters in Woking for £170 million on a 20-year leaseback scheme, to save McLaren.

"I always had an inner belief that we’d get the money and/or the shareholders would ultimately step up," Brown said. "I was highly stressed, but I always felt at the end of the day we would figure it out, and we did."

The growth of F1 since emerging from Covid has been exponential, to such an extent that McLaren, which can now boast a blue-chip portfolio of sponsors, has "been profitable for a couple of years," and is poised to boast record revenue of "over £500 million" this year.

On track, the turnaround has been equally as striking, significantly since Brown appointed Andrea Stella as team principal at the end of 2022 after Andreas Seidl opted to become CEO of the Sauber Group, a position he recently vacated.

One of Stella's first acts, when the 2023 car was launched, was to be transparent and open that the team was behind schedule in the development of the MCL60, and it would be a few months before it would be competitive.

It was not until an upgrade package was introduced on the car of Lando Norris only in Austria, the ninth of the 22 races last year, that McLaren was suddenly transformed, since when its growth in performance, with the application of further updates, has outstripped its rivals.

"At the end of '22, I asked Andrea to lead the team," said Brown. "That was the second time I asked because the first time around he didn't feel he was ready.

"When he did say yes, I had him look into everything, and sure enough, my fears of what I saw in the middle of '22, which was at the same time as we were developing the '23 car, came to light when Andrea did a quick study and he said, '2023 is going to be a bad start'. I was thankful I made the changes."

Despite the improvements, Brown, Stella and all at McLaren still had to watch Red Bull and Max Verstappen win seven of the first 10 grands prix this season, although there was a highlight for the team when Norris finally won his first grand prix at the 110^th time of asking in his F1 career when he took the chequered flag in Miami.

Further victories have followed, in Hungary and Azerbaijan for Oscar Piastri to get his account up and running, as well as for Norris in the Netherlands and Singapore.

It was not until that Azerbaijan triumph, however, that McLaren finally overhauled Red Bull in the constructors' championship, ending the team's 56-race run at the top of the standings, stretching back to Spain 2022. With five races remaining, McLaren's lead over Red Bull is 40 points, with a hard-charging Ferrari just eight points adrift following its one-two in Sunday's grand prix in the United States.

Reflecting on McLaren's journey now, and what might lie in store come the final race of the campaign in Abu Dhabi, Brown is naturally ebullient, but also highly cautious.

"Leading the world championship, it's a good place for us to be," said Brown. "I'm still in a bit of a state of disbelief, which is good because it's keeping us humble, with feet on the ground, and we still feel like the underdog. Nothing drives me more crazy than what I'm hearing constantly from people, which is, 'Oh, you've got the constructors' sewn up'. Don't even go there.

"But to be constructors' champions again would be a dream. I think it would be a fan favourite. I think our fans and Formula 1 fans in general, are big Lando, Oscar and McLaren fans. I think it'll be a very liked outcome by the outer world. And for us, for me, it would be a dream come true. Winning the world championship, that's what it's all about.

"But Andrea has got us all trained. Let's just keep doing what we're doing one day at a time."

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.