Zak Brown Makes a Blunt McLaren F1 Admission: “How Long is This Guy Gonna Last!”

McLaren racing CEO Zak Brown joined the team in 2016 as executive director and was later promoted to his current role in 2018. Brown is responsible for the entire McLaren Racing organization, including the strategic direction, operational performance, marketing, and commercial development of the McLaren F1 program. He has enjoyed a successful stint with the team in the last 5 years.

Brown is a prolific figure in F1, who carries a genuine passion for helping McLaren find its glory back. Ahead of the 2022 season, he has been vocal against big teams lobbying for a budget increase. In a recent podcast appearance, he discussed the time when he entered the F1 space with Mclaren. Brown admits it was intimidating because the Woking-based company saw many upper management layoffs in that era.

The team was struggling in F1 when Brown entered the scene. McLaren teamed up with Honda when the Japanese manufacturers returned to F1. The two paired up for three seasons between 2015 to 2017, where Mclaren ended up taking 9th, 6th, and 9th spot in the Constructors’ standings. The board promoted Brown to CEO a year later, and he yielded significant results.

The Woking-based team finished 3th in the constructors’ rankings in 2020 and 4th in 2021. The driver lineup of Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris gave McLaren the only 1-2 finish this season, in Monza. The team is looking forward to going wheel-to-wheel with Ferrari in 2022, quite like the last season.

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The atmosphere in McLaren F1 intimidated Zak Brown

After 5 successful years with the team, the Woking factory feels like home to Brown. However, that wasn’t always the case. In a Spotify podcast titled “My Big Break”, Brown was asked if he had any doubts about joining Mclaren because of the turbulence in the team. To this, he had an interesting answer. “Umm No. It felt like it was an awesome opportunity, but it was pretty intimidating, the racing side of it. I’m not technical, I know a lot more today than I did 5 years ago but I’m still not technical,” said Brown.

“That was one reason I joined the Cosworth board way back when I recognized I don’t have a desire to be an engineer or a technician but I do wanna learn. It was pretty intimidating, walking into the factory having 800-900 people, this legendary team, this iconic brand, and let’s face it, a bit of a revolving door. Whitmarsh in, Whitmarsh out. Ron in, Ron out… You know, It was a kind of ‘how long is this guy gonna last’,” he added.

That same year saw a downfall of Ron Dennis from the team, one of the greats in Formula One. McLaren was in a phase where not many major executive officers could save their place in the team. This included names like Ron Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh.

Brown, however, got an uninterrupted run with the team and performances have been improving drastically over the years. Fans are expecting the Woking team to fight for wins and podiums regularly. Can the duo of Ricciardo and Norris make this happen? We will know soon enough.

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