McLaren Boss Zak Brown Talks Miami Grand Prix, ‘Drive to Survive’ and Team’s Outlook for 2025
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When people spot Zak Brown on the race track, they know he means business. And why wouldn’t he? As the CEO of McLaren Racing, Brown has helped propel the venerated Formula One team back to the front of the F1 grid while launching a number of new partnerships for the brand and its drivers.
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Ahead of this weekend’s 2024 Miami Grand Prix, McLaren sit third in the constructors standings, while drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are fifth and sixth in the drivers standings, respectively. The two have also become certified global superstars, with appearances that draw thousands of fans, while fronting campaigns for everyone from TUMI to PlayStation.
Brown has brought McLaren Racing into the larger motorsports stage as well, with teams now participating in IndyCar, Formula E, Extreme E and eSports. His goal: to bring more awareness to motorsports, but also to position McLaren as the team to beat. “We want to win,” he says. “Anything we race in, we want to win.”
Rolling Stone hopped on the phone with Brown to talk about the team’s chances at F1 Miami, the growth of Formula One in the U.S., and why he thinks McLaren’s stability could make them the team to beat in 2025.
This is the third year that the F1 Miami race is taking place. How do you like it here?
I love how popular it is. I love how it kind of helped take Formula One to the next level in North America. I think Austin did an awesome job, then you had the Netflix show [Drive to Survive], then you got Miami and then you’ve got Las Vegas, all building on top of each other.
The first year had a few challenges, but they’ve responded in spades, especially with creating a great paddock environment for the racing teams, because where we were the first year was too small, given the demand. But the paddock club experience is now one of the best. So I like the promoter, I like the event, I like the market. And hopefully we’ll have a good race this weekend.
You mentioned Drive to Survive, and I wanted to ask what you think about racing and entertainment sort of mixing together more these days, since I know you come from the automotive world.
I think one of the greatest strengths and things that are exciting about Formula One is that we race in all these different countries, and every country has its own culture. And America, probably more so than any other country is sports and entertainment, right? Think of the Super Bowl — some people go for the halftime show, some people go for the football game. So I think it works the drivers probably harder than they might like to work off-track, but they like it. It’s pretty hard not to enjoy going to events and seeing fans screaming for you and asking for your autograph. There’s a tiring part of it, because it is work and you’ve got to be on your A-game. But I don’t think they dislike it.
Where do you draw that line at doing too much off-track, and losing focus on the race?
I think any elite athlete will have a limit to how hard they work, so sometimes we have to bring in some brand ambassadors, like Mika Häkkinen, a former world champion, to help fulfill our partner requests, because we have a lot of them. We only have two Grand Prix drivers who do need to focus on Grand Prix racing, so there are rules and protocols in place as to what time they need to be in bed, what time they wake up, what time they eat [and] how far we shut them down before the start of the race, so they can focus on the race.
I enjoy all the activity, because so much of what we do is business to business related, so the more activity the better, from a partner point of view. But our team knows that Lando and Oscar are only available at these times, and if one does dinner on Friday, the other will do dinner on Saturday; we never try and get the drivers together because then you can’t get a lot of partners. It’s all very planned out.
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You mentioned all the different brands and partners that want to work with McLaren, but you have a very active and dedicated fan base too. What do you attribute that to?
One, we recognize the fan is the center of our ecosystem. Without fans, you don’t have media rights, you don’t have countries wanting to hold races, you don’t have sponsors, etc. So like, our world revolves around the fan. And I think we’ve got a great digital comms team, who are constantly engaging with our fans in a two-way conversation, which is nice, because I think 10 to 20 years ago, you would kind of broadcast [something] and you’d get some feedback, but you wouldn’t get it instantaneously, whether good or bad. Fans give you feedback right away. And so if we see something they don’t like, we try and do less of it. And if we see something they like, we want to do more of it.
What’s an example of fan feedback that the team has listened to?
Well our historic color is “papaya,” and we went away from it in the Seventies. And we saw a lot of fans go ‘Bring back papaya, bring back papaya!’ So we brought it back and they loved it. And we did it for them. So I would like to think that we’re the most inclusive team, that focuses a tremendous amount on our fans. And then it helps that we’ve got two great, very popular, friendly drivers. I don’t think you’ll meet anyone who doesn’t like Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. If they’re not their favorite drivers, they’re in their top three.
You have both Lando and Oscar signed on through 2025, while other teams are still finalizing their driver lineups. Does that put McLaren at some sort of advantage?
Yes, and I think not just the lineup of our drivers, which even goes beyond next year, but we’ve got stability in our team. We’ve got all the technology updated that had been holding us back, new wind tunnel simulator, etc. We have two great young drivers, a great technical team, a great commercial team. And you know, there are some other teams in the sport right now that have some turmoil that will take a little bit of time to have impact. But if I look at our next five years, I think we have real stability and focus, while some of our core competitors aren’t yet sure who’s driving for them next year, aren’t yet sure who’s working for them next year, and you know, they’re great teams, so they’ll be fine. But stability is critically important, because if you look at the teams that win, usually stability is one of the key ingredients. So I’m excited we have that, and now it just kind of needs to marinate.
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In addition to Formula One, McLaren is also a huge presence in IndyCar, and yet, it doesn’t feel like IndyCar has risen to the same level of popularity as F1. Why do you think that is?
I’m a huge IndyCar fan, but I think they need to do a few things: I think they need to get a better, more aggressive digital activation plan, because the whole world is digital. And I think there’s a lot of room for improvement. I think they could do with a new racing car, that car is quite old. And while the racing is very competitive, you know, people like motorsports because of the evolving technology. So I think a refresher of the product would create some excitement. And I think that there needs to be some investment. When you go to Long Beach for example, I think they do a wonderful job, but there’s not been a lot of money [spent] on upgrading the facility. I think while the racing is outstanding, the product can use an upgrade, and if you put that all together, IndyCar is awesome — it just needs some more forward momentum.
What lessons can IndyCar learn from the success of F1?
I think they have a real opportunity in that Formula One has created so many new fans in America, and new fans are kind of the easiest ones to get into [a new sport]. I think it’s easier to win someone who’s just been turned onto Formula One in the last year than someone who’s maybe been following Formula One for 30 years. But Formula One’s not a competitor [to IndyCar] because it’s a global sport. So it’s no different than when the World Cup comes to America [in 2026], I would think MLS will ultimately benefit from that. So IndyCar can hopefully draft a little bit off of Formula One’s success in America as well.
Last question: How do you like McLaren’s chances for this weekend?
We got some good upgrades this weekend; our cars are pretty strong. Red Bull remains, specifically Max Verstappen, the team to beat, and I don’t see any reason why that will change this weekend. But I think we are definitely in with a shot and going to be racing for the podium.
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