McLaren are seriously considering a return fo endurance races in the wake of the announcement by the FIA and the ACO that rules for prototype and road-going hypercars will come into effect for the next season of the World Endurance Championship.
Speaking to media at Le Mans, McLaren CEO Zak Brown hailed the latest development, “It’s good that they’ve announced and that it’s now finalised because it gives us something to react to. It’s been a lengthy work in progress, but overall pleased.”
“Gil, myself, Mike Flewitt… we’ll work to ultimately come forward with a recommendation of if we want to do it, how to do it and when we want to do it. Now we know what the rules are.”
“We’ve been at every meeting, we’ve been part of the journey. Ultimately we can’t go with Mike to the board with a plan where the foundations are not firm. Now that we have that, we’re going to be able to move quickly.”
“It’s not like [it] was a surprise or we had not been working on it, now we know who’s playing and how they’re playing and we can finalise our plans and ultimately bring them forward for discussion.”
While McLaren’s flagship Formula 1 team struggles in the top flight and reducing the once-mighty outfit to the wrong side of the midfield, Brown has also shown interest in Indycar, but according to him tackling one or the other one are independent decisions.
“All our racing decisions would be taken in isolation. Formula 1 has to economically make sense, which currently it doesn’t, but hopefully, with the budget cap coming it will be economically more viable. We would run everything independently, not only technically but fiscally.”
Asked if the team would not be stretched under such circumstances, the American replied, “One isn’t going to pull on the other and we’re not going to not do this or not do this. Everything has to stand on its own two feet.”
“I don’t think that you can compare [WEC and Indycar] I think they both have their separate reasons. One’s about the North American market place, the other is about the Automotive business, so I don’t think you can rank them in that way. They serve different purposes,” added Brown.
As for drivers, Gil De Ferran said, “Fernando [Alonso] is part of the McLaren family. I think any team would be glad to have him driving in one of their cars and we are no exception. We haven’t finalised anything like that. We’ll be looking towards having the best possible driver line-up. If that includes some of our F1 drivers that would be great.”
Big Question: McLaren for WEC, good or bad for the team?