A few seasons ago, McLaren appeared to be be not able to win Formula 1 anymore. The former leaders of Formula 1 were having poor results, lacked internal stability and were causing a lack of satisfaction among the sponsors.
Fans were becoming very upset because McLaren could no longer compete with the other teams and ended up finishing at the bottom of the field.
Today, McLaren is a totally different team that has surprised everyone when they won the 2024 Constructors Championship, and then the following season they took home the 2025 Drivers’ Championship.
This turnaround is one of the largest increases that has come along in a long time in Formula 1.
According to CEO Zak Brown, the transformation did not begin with a magical technical breakthrough or one major signing. It started with fixing the people and culture inside the team.
Zak Brown Explains What Changed Inside McLaren
Zak Brown joined McLaren in 2016 before becoming CEO in 2018 during one of the toughest periods in the team’s modern history.
At the time, McLaren had fallen dramatically behind its rivals both on and off the track.
“It’s all about people,” Zak Brown told the media.
Read More
“When I started, the team had definitely gone through tough times.”
“We were ninth in the championship; we didn’t have many partners. A couple of partners we had weren’t very happy.”
“Our fans were disgruntled, politics inside the racing team. Other than that, everything was great!”
The American executive admitted the situation inside McLaren was messy, but he believed the foundations for recovery were already there because of the team’s historic legacy in Formula 1.
“What was great was our brand,” Zak Brown explained.
“It wasn’t in a great place, but you can’t take away the history and the heritage.
Read More
“We knew we had something there to work with, and a lot of championships and race wins in our existing racing team, but they just weren’t working well together.”
One of the key themes in Zak Brown’s comments was leadership and unity.
Instead of completely rebuilding the team from scratch, McLaren focused on improving communication, transparency, and teamwork within the organisation.
“So I actually felt ‘this is very fixable’,” Zak Brown said.
“Your brand is critically important; that’s what brings in partners and attracts people to work for the team.”
“We’ve got great people in the team, who just needed some leadership, guidance, teamwork, and transparency.”
Much of McLaren’s competitive resurgence has also been credited to team principal Andrea Stella, who has become one of the most respected figures in the paddock over the last three years.
Under Andrea Stella’s leadership, McLaren steadily evolved from midfield hopefuls into genuine championship contenders capable of consistently challenging the grid’s top teams.
Why McLaren Brought Back the Iconic Papaya Colour
One of the earliest and most visible changes Zak Brown made was restoring McLaren’s traditional papaya livery, reconnecting the team with its history and fanbase.
Zak Brown revealed the move came directly from listening to supporters.
“The first thing we did was we went back to our papaya, which is our history,” he said.
“We did that because that’s the fans told us they wanted.”
“And so we listen to our fans. Someone said to me at the time, ‘You’re only doing that because the fans want it. [I said] ‘that’s exactly why we’re doing it’.”
The decision eventually became symbolic of McLaren’s broader revival strategy: reconnecting with its identity while rebuilding trust internally and externally.
In modern Formula 1, where success is often linked to massive budgets and technical dominance, McLaren’s rise has stood out because of how quickly the team rebuilt itself from chaos into a title-winning operation.
Also Read: Ralf Schumacher Backs Charles Leclerc Over Lewis Hamilton Despite Strong F1 Form
