Future Aspirations and the Triple Crown

This is a global production. But you need to be braveven in sport and business. You had a car that was unreliable and when it did rnt, it was slow. It can take some time now to worry about the second because now it's our turn next. You went from that to world Champions in two years I think Llando and Oscar are both demonstrated they can beat him straight up. Thanks for stepping You want to sign him to speed It's willill. ex's exact And welcome Up to speed Such a pro Such a pro No. Zach Brown. McLaren CEO, welcome to the show.. Silverston Week guessing it's a busy one. It's a busy one. It's about as busy is they get but actually all forormal one races now the best way I describe them. it's twenty four Super Bowls and twenty four Davos. So hundreds of thousands of fans. and lots of Ca level executives hanging around to do business in Formula One, which is a great thing. Yeah, it's not a bad thing. That's a great thing. That's absolutely huge, man. Listen, before we get this interview started, I wanted to ask you You know, you do so many of these interviews every single day, every single week, every single month You have to prep What the one question you prep for that you never get asked. O I think You guys are good. I don't think there's anything that I've never not been Hm asked and no one's shy. They they like to ask the tough stuff Um but I can't think of, uh, I can't think of one I haven't been asked. You should see some of the things I have been asked. Okay, what's the wildest thing you have? You should see this thing I'll show you offline. Okay CNN. that was a prank that was played on me which that was pretty pretty wild and someone with the right sense of humor. But no, I've kind of seen it all over the years. You have seen it all, you've done it all. We know your story back back to front of how you got to where you are now But I think the thing that really fascinates me is you were a McLaren fan Still in. Still up And then you end up running the thing that you love the most in the world. but you have to run it effectively business minded, but there's obviously going to be a lot of emotion in there for you. How do you separate business mind from the emotional heart. Sometimes I don't. sometometimes I think, you know put my fan hat on, which I've been a massive fan of motor racing my entire life. McLaren Joy alwayss been my favorite team When when we work on what we're going to do for our fans, actuallyually I think about. What would I like as a fan? What were the memories that I had from the nineteen eighty one Long Beach Grand Prix, the first race I ever went to, the first driver I met. How did I? Uh want to get close to Eriton Sena and Mika Hakan and my two favorite drivers. And now with today's world, how can we help get our fans closer to Llando and Oscar? So I think the emotion and the fandom in me is a benefit and I lean into that quite a bit. And then of course, there's a fine line between emotion and passion and when it comes to the business side, I try and focus on passion for winning and success and not the emotion that comes with either winning or losing because emotion means you can do some stuff that you might regret. So fine line between passion and emotion. also a fine line between bravery and stupidity. Yes. It's a great Paul McCartney lyric There is a fine line between recklessness and courage. Yeah and so and you need to find that fine line, right? Because you know, up until u stupidity. there's a lot of bravery. you just never want to kind of step over the line, but you need to be brave in sport and business That's really reflective of when you first took over and the team was kind of in the doldrums. One of the first things you did was bring the papaya color And I remember You know, back with the old McLaren, they'd run a papaya testing livery And the fans loved it, but the car from that point on was always silver and it was always going to be silver So in the absence of results and being able to deliver the fans something on track, you gave them something that they'd been crying out for for years, which was papaya. The papaya color, right? And it gave the team and identity. how key in the rebuilding of the team was Starting with an identity, starting with a sense of self. Yeah, I think it was very important, you know when we changed the papayates because that's what all ourans fans were telling us they wanted. And I remember some kind of, you know columem old school we're like, you're only doing that ' that's what the fans want. It was like Yeah. Is that a trick question. That's exactly why we were doing it. And I think it was a signal not only just from a pure branding identity, but it was actually also a signal to how important our fans are to us and how we listen and how we engage because I think McLaren unbelievable But we got to a point where, you know, in today's world people want engagement, not just awareness They want inclusivity, not necessarily exclusivity. And so I felt it was a identifier notot only just from a visual standpoint, but to our fans, our employees, our partners that, you know, this is going to be a positive, engaging, inclusive racing team that cares about our people, our people being our team, our fans, our sponsor partners because I don't think I think we hit a moment where we had lost some direction and we didn't pay enough attention to the people that were important to us, and we paid the price kind of on and off the track. and now that we're all about our fans and our people and our partners. You know, we're a couple championships in and have some of the best partners in the world and the most engaged fan base in the world. So we gott to keep it going Did you redefine and almost kind of restart sure within the team because because that that kind of that fan forward sensibility was clearly something that was very important, but the team itself had almost become seen as quite cold, quite clinical the processes were not working on the track You had to go into a team that had had all of these things established for decades and rewire that How do you do that? Yeah, it u I mean, the team has so many championships and wins under its belt and I knew A lot of people at McLaren have done a lot of a lot of winning, but I think we lost direction. you know, we had constant changes in leadership. That's not a great way for any business or sports team to go moving forward as if you're kind of Got some troubles at the boardroom, which were all well documented. then everyone kind of loses a bit of direction. And so I ended up kind of rebuilding the leadership team were all mega aligned, very competitive. And then it was about letting everyone know how important their role is, you know, on Sunday, the driver carries the trophy, you send one person up from the team. People think about the great pit stop, the great aerodynamics. But in order to have a great pit stop and great aerodyynamics, you need to have awesome fans, which means you have to have an awesome marketing and communications department Then you have to have an awesome commercial department the partners involved because you've got great fans and a great brand then you have to have a great finance department because we live in a cost cap world, so we have to spend our money very efficiently and wisely to put performance on the car or on our Gott to have a great HR department so everyone knows We're one team. All that has to be fired on all cylinders before you can turn over. the drivers and the technology. and so You know, I think we've got people to understand that when you see a great pit stop Yes, it's those sixteen, twenty people that were touching the car in the moment But who paid for The guns, who paid for the great drivers you know, Who put the team together? And so I think there's a real recognition that when we win on Sunday Whether you're in the communications or marketing department, the finance department, or on the Pit crew, you all equally contributed to us winning on Sunday. And once people really feel that they're part of a team, it's amazing how four thousand four hundred people can come together, the kind of thrust and the energy that can create That was never better exemplified than your run to back to back championships And the fascinating part for all of us watching from the Oside is how you went from being plum last to champions in two years. And I remember that test Um, where the car was falling apart The wheel what you calling a little flip. Yeah we couldn't get laps in because we had braking issues. Yeah. and everything was collapsing in on itself You had a car that was unreliable and when it did rnt, it was slow. B combination. B combination. Rather it not be reliable so people can't figure out how to slow. You went from that to world Champions in two years. How? people People people people. And you know, leadership and I'm talking about my leadership, not Zaxs, but my leadership team led by Andrea, Stella on the performance of the racing team. you know, I changed a few people. Um, Th of the top leaders. But let's say we've got a thousand people in the formula one team I changed three, the nine hundred and ninety seven that gave us the car that was you know, arguably the slowest car at the start of the year. or the same nine hundred and ninety seven people. They gave us a world Championship car U the leadership The whole team has provided has gotten everyone rowing the same direction working together constantly trying to outperform each other. and we've created this awesome performance culture. It's a no blame culture. So when we have a problem, which we do, we tackle the problem So it's a safe environment. We work together. And you know, when I joined, people were blaming each other. I was like, Look, it's one car. So you might think you're great on the front end of the car and it's the person's fault to the back end of the car, but it's one racing car. so can we learn how to work together? And it's been an amazing quest, as we call it, a journey. It's coming into the office every day Qest is flying to the moon, it's a much bigger challenge. and so that's the term we like to use. You've already proven that within a regulations cycle, you can turn things on their head, which is so rare and so difficult to do. We're now at the beginning of another regulations cycle You're not where you want to be Tough Will it be within this regulation cycle to catch back up or do you have confidence having seen it done once already that you can do so? I've got a lot of confidence, but it's going be very tough. You know, the other ten teams in Formula onene, these are the best racing teams in the world. so the competition never sit still, but we have gone from ninth The greatickest So we can definitely go from third to quickest It'll take some time. Mercedes done a great job. We won the sprint in Miami. We almost won the race in Miami. We almost won the race in Japan. Great to see Lewis get his first win in Ferrari colors He can take some time now to worry about the second because now it's our turn next. But but great to see for Lewis. I'm a Lewis fan. I think that was cool for the sport U But I think the whole thing' closing up. you know, Max almost wanted the weekend and you know, Max had been in the year. they were the fourth fifth quickest team. So I think Your top four teams are always going to be your top four teams. We're going to do our best to not let there be a top five, but Wellbe six other teams will be trying to knock on the door getting into the big four I think all four teams will win races this year. two already have we've been close, Red Bull's been close and I think it's going to be an exciting season. you know,'s we're only a third of the way through Formula One was riding a crest of a wave over recent years, never more popular globally, and that's something which has been a rarity in its entire seventy five year and more history. This year didn't come without controversy, right from the top, right from the first race established fans saying this isn't the formula one that they recognized anymore. The racing wasn't what they expected from it. How do you as someone who Not only runs a team but has a foothold and a foundation in marketing Critically. How did you see the start of this year? And how did you sort of work out in your own head? How do we move beyond this and how do we fix this? Yeah, good good question. and definitely a lot of noise and still noise, but that noise is getting quieter, which A knew that would happen, right? whereere eight races in Formula onene has a magnifying glass on it. So as we all know anythingything that happens is like goes from volume one to one hundred no matter what the whatever the topic is. That's one of the beautiful things about forormal one, right? Everything's just amplified. I think reality is the racing has been Great. Um you you know, even though the teams have been dominant You still need to be the other driver. their equipment. So you know, some people said artificial racing, same thing happened when DRS came out, you know, that was a way to spice up the the racing, I think you still it's kind of driver and machine against other driver and machine and with whatever you have You still have to beat them. So I think the racing's been great. Now in saying that I'm sympathetic to the drivers because you do have deployment issues and you have to manage your deployment. so it's a new challenge. I think drivers understandably having once been one, just want to go flat out the whole time I do think this is young technology and the sports already taking steps improve it. We made small steps this year. We'll make a bigger step in twenty seven. So am I worried about it? No. Is it a real thing, especially from a driver's point of view? Yes Has it translated to actually very exciting Racing, hell yes. So it's getting quieter. We'll work through it. It'll be a non issue in short order. So it's nothing that concerns me. Is it slightly strange that in the era of ADUO When teams or engine manufacturers can have tokens to upgrade their engine if it's not as performant as another engine, that engine manufacturers are essentially having to go out and argue that their engine is not as good as somebody could Be on Sunday on Monday. our engine the best and now everyone's out there going Our engine's terrible Yeah Eactly It's interesting. You know, I think the sports in a good place from a level of competitiveness. We do like our acronyms. Everyone's like, what does that mean? Everyone I have no idea actually what it means. I know what it means, but I couldn't tell you what it. But yeah, it's interesting this kind of you know, balanced performance happens in other forms of racing. That's nothing that will happen in Formula one, but to give you know, engines a chance to, you know, no one wants to be kind of locked into not being competitive. So I think it's the right thing for the sport to make sure everyone stays close to each other, but a lot of gaming in the system. Yeah, right sure. Talking about gaming the system or sort of you know bringing parity, you had a scenario where you've got two number one drivers and you've always said you wanted two number one drivers, you want the guys that are the best and are pushing each other. How do you maintain cordiality parity between those two drivers in a sport where And this is the strange thing with Formulon because it's the case in other types of motorsports It's one team for two drivers. It's one pit crew for two drivers. It's one pit wall making the determination for two drivers. It's very different to IndieCar. Yeah, right Which you have a team in as well where each of your three cars in IndieCar or four for the indie five hundred, they have their own dedicated pit crew.. They have their own dedicated strategist. Every single part of their operation is focused solely on them and they know they're working what is the best for them individually How do you then balance that for two when you can never you'll never be a tire. Yeah You can't have a tire. Yeah.'s It's been a lot of fun You know, we've got it has because we're racers, you know, we want to race. And I think the secret to it is transparency with you drivers Tust with your drivers treating them fairly in equally We're going to make mistakes. We've made mistakes for both. Anytime they've got grumpy, what's important is they've never been grumpy at each other. They've been grumpy at Andrea and I But kind of equally. So we kind of go,, they've both been kind of grumpy a handful of time. set feels pretty fair. And it is a challenge because you know, they're called teammates And they work together themselves in the position to have the best car then enemy number one is My teammates And I'm so proud of how we went racing Last year, everyone was saying it start of the year favor Orlando. then the middle of the year was favor Oskar and then at the end of the year and it was like, no, we're going to We know the consequences of letting them race fairly and equally is neither might win the championship because they take points off each other, which is exactly what happened in two thousand seven. Lewis and Fernando tied I'd rather have that outcome by staying true to our racing values and how we go racing then favoring one because then the other one's going to leave. So if you're going to have two number one drivers You need to treat them as two number one drivers. Could you ever envisage a future where separate sides of the garage have separate So separate strategies, separate pit crews. and then You You are a team but the driver can then be assured in their own total independence. good. Yeah, you know, Pit crew know because of just the way Formula Oes, you know the set up and the size and scope and what's cool is teams come together to help help each other. Each team does have its own engineer and its own strategy, but of course ahead of strategies looking at both cars. We've got ways we go racing that the drivers have signed up to. so they know kind of how a race will play out. and you know, sometimes you'll go on split strategies like you had in Hungary last year where Lando did a one stopper Andre and I actually didn't think I was going to work on Pitwall. It was kind of a free chance Andlando one he did a brilliant job and, you know, Oscar did a two stop, which was the quicker strategy, but because of track dynamics and how great Orlando drove. he ended up winning. And those are tricky situations. but I think if you stay true to your racing values then people know that you're racing with the right intentions. And I think that's all our drivers want, or equal opportunities to win. You have two number one drivers. One of them is the reigning worldorld Champion, but of this generation there is Only one number one driver in the paddock and that's Max Veropen You want to sign him Well, I've got two awesome racing drivers. So if I had a third car, I'd sign them in a heartbeat. But you don't. But I don't have a third car. so I couldn't be happier Orlando and Oscar. We won fourteen races last year, two drivers that came down to the last race of the year with the chance to win the championship. They get along great. They set a great tone in the garage U I'm not making any driver changes. You know, if you ever were U, you know, I think I said at the weekend, if someone slips on a banana peel, which is not the plan. Yes. then yeah, I mean, you know Any racing series is about getting the best drivers in the world and giving them the best equipment. So Max is an awesome talent, but I think Llando and Oscar are both demonstrated they can beat him straight up. So if Max was available you wouldn't sign him on the basis that you have Oscar and L. I don't have a seat available. If seat was available, then of course you have that conversation. But Lando and Oscar have their names engraved on their race seat. and They haven't emptied out their lockers, so they're not going anywhere. Let that be an end to that rumor, Mill, then. We love that, Zach. I want to look at the wider McLaren story. You have just well, not just, but recently said you're going into hypercar. Yes. And I know the tririple Crown is a huge one for you, the former of one worldld Championship Monaco depending on which definition you take of it. The indy five hundred, the LeMont twenty four hours. How excited are you to be going back to Leemont excited I mean, we're, you, I want us to be the most exciting racing team and engaged racing team in the world for our fans. I want us to be the most commercially exciting for our partners ate a lot of opportunities for our employees. and you know, we're called McLaren racing. Yeah. And those three forms of motorsport, indndyCar, Lemon, of course, Fmula one, we've got great history. and we've won all three before, but in three different decades. So we now want to win them again under the Papaya era. So we're one down with Monaco two to go couple of second places at Indie, which is also close and will be competitive at Lamar very difficult racing series, but that's the that would be the dream that would make us we're already unique to do it again. I think it's something that stands us different than everyone else. and I think that's a cool thing. And as you know, once you get the second race done, that third race, it becomes bigger than even just the third race. So I hope to get to create an environment where fans around the world are cheering us on to to win that final leg of the triple Crown, but we' got to win the second one first. I got to interview Lando on the Monday after the five hundred because he came to Indianapolis, as you know. and I asked him. if he would like to deliver you the triple crown And it wasn't a no. Interesting. Bea of course he did the five hundreds virtually. Yeah. Whip that? He was good. Super fast until he got re. But could have won it, should have won it. He doesn't hate the idea at all. In fact, was very excited about the idea of running the indie five hundred for real. loves the idea of doing L Mon. Could you envisage a day where Lando Norris Yeah Competes in and completes the triple crrown fe. I could see that day and I think Oscar would be pretty excited to give it a go as well. You know, the oval, everyone is a bit like o. Smack on the wall at two hundred and thirty miles an hour. That looks like that hurts. They'd all love to do LMont. such an iconic race. I mean the three are, you know, I know you've been to all all three They're so special and unique in the size and scale and the history. They've all had movies made about them. Yes. they're massively attended events. I'm excited to see Papayi on the grid next year. I have to ask you the question because You're here and I'm here. A lot of rumourors at the moment about your indie car line. There certainly are. There are U Maybe that's what you know, Max Versopin wants to talk about. Maybe Max is coming to the five hundreds. Is Scott Dixon coming to McLaren next year? He's a pretty awesome talent. Is't he six championships from New Zealand, something in Calmon with with our with our our founder, great friend, great racing driver Uh, N say never It would be nice, wouldn't it Be becausecause he's really good endurance racing too. so he'd be a neat fit for hypercar as well. He knows how to get around a lot of different types of racinghips. I can see you're being quite cagey about this. He's an awesome guy. He's an awesome talent. you know He's done dayaytona. Lamon' oneon dayaytona a bunch. So you know, people of his skill set, much like Lewis Hamilton. you know, these champions, they they know how to make teams better as well. So maybe one of these days will'll work together. It's not a no, is it? Brilliant stuff. Okay. C in England. But what are we doing that one in. As you said, Zach, it's called McLaren racing. Yes It's called McLaren. There many strings to your boat. It Silmston this weekend. Lando's got his own grandstand. it's a huge event, always, both for Lando and for the team What are your expectations Um We're going to try and win this thing. know, I think you got to assume Merc U continues to have the pace. everyveryone's getting a little bit closer right Ferari finally beat him. Max was on George's heels. We almost got the job done in Miami. So I think I think it's to be an exciting weekend. five hundred thousand people over the course of the weekend. four hundred fifty thousand. I love these big events, the size and scale. Cota, Austin, British Grand Prix, Australia. so many people. it's just brings so much energy. So Definitely going for the podium. I'd like to try and get on the top step of the podium. and yeah, I think we have a chance.. Zach, as always, thank you for your time. wonderful insight into into the team, the year, the history, the future as well, B of luck for Silst M. Thank you very much. Thank you O an ending thanks to Zach Brown for a wonderful conversation, a great insight to the team and for a definitive answer to the question that everybody has been asking. There is no seat and Lando and Oscars' names are Firmly engraved at McLaren No room at the inn for the four time champion. That's it for this episode, folks. But we have another this week coming to you on Thursday with racing Balls driver, Aravid Linn Blad as he prepares to take part in his first ever British Grand Prix as a Formula onene driver. As always, you can get in contact with us on social media to speed show, you can email us up to speed at global. com and join us tomorrow where we'll be back with Alvid Lindblad This has been a global production