Outside Line: Thank you Zak Brown for Making McLaren Great Again
F1 NewsSunday, 12 October 2025 at 07:30
Before Formula 1 is engulfed by America and a substantial triumph is forgotten, it is time to gloat a little! My team, McLaren, won the 2025 Formula 1 Constructors’ title, making it ten in total; only Ferrari has more with 16, and winning two in a row for the first time since 1991 was extra sweet.
Alas, the McLaren story out of Singapore was not that they had achieved this incredible feat, two in a row, with half a dozen races still to go. That alone is remarkable and deserved all the column inches available in the aftermath of that night at Marina Bay Circuit.
But it was Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris’s increasingly fractious 'civil war' for the title that stole the headlines, a title that is sure to go McLaren’s way either way, unless, of course, Max Verstappen has anything to say about it.
I’ve scoured the internet, and yes, there are occasional tributes to the fact that McLaren won the F1 world title last Sunday. But not what they deserved for the incredible feat. Imagine if it had been Ferrari or Mercedes, it would have been weeks of noise about how brilliant they are.
With McLaren, their unique way of managing their drivers has taken priority over the news that they are F1 world champions again. Therefore, this column is dedicated to blowing smoke up the asses of the guys who truly deserve this accolade.
Granted, the excellent and ever-improving duo of Piastri and Norris won them the title, but let’s be honest, Verstappen, Russell, Leclerc and Hamilton, and Alonso would probably have done the same thing.
The McLaren MCL39 is a very, very good car, and it’s been getting better and better, evolving well from last year's MCL38, which was handy too. The 'Clever Guys' at McLaren really nailed the mature end of this F1 rules era, and I sincerely hope they will do the same going forward. But it’s not guaranteed. Next year is a total lottery.
It all started with Zak Brown
Zak Brown is a fascinating character in the way he came through the sport, through driver management and sponsorship brokering, coupled to an impressive motorsport background as a driver and experienced team owner in a private capacity through United Autosports.
That multifaceted background is very important, in my opinion, and probably the reason McLaren is what it is today. Honestly, I was among the sceptics when he emerged as McLaren boss. To me, Zak talked a good game, but he spread himself and the team too thin early on, I believe, in the wrong direction. Banking on Fernando Alonso for too long. In retrospect, that was probably ill-advised.
Let's forget the Spanish legend's first encampment at Woking in 2007. One cannot detract from the fact that the Spaniard and McLaren had some interesting history. thereafter. They went to Indianapolis and did things together under Brown’s watch. Let's conveniently
But in Formula 1, it was really sad. Remember those grey McLarens? It was probably the worst team on the grid by far, the worst McLaren team I’d ever witnessed. It was really diabolically bad. A Formula 2 car, as Alonso put it.
At the time, Zak was resolute: "Give me five years, and we’re going to get this thing together.” It sounded ridiculous. He even went further: “We want to win in every category of motorsport.” I thought it was madness.
But he did it on the first count emphatically, and he is sure to give the second goal a good shot in years to come with his plans for McLaren on the racing front.
It took six years to start winning in Formula 1
Now he’s a two-time F1 Constructors’ World Champion and a F1 Drivers' title beckoning. That is an incredible turnaround. I cannot think of any team that has fallen from such great heights to such deep lows, and climbed back again. part from Ferrari, whose longevity in Formula 1 naturally brings peaks and troughs. But were they ever as bad as McLaren were between 2015 and 2017?
McLaren loyalists like me thought it was over. There was no light at the end of the tunnel for too many years. But Zak turned it around. I won’t get into who backs the team financially; I’m into performance. And performance-wise, he’s delivered.
Zak didn’t build the car, but he put the right people together. And if anything good came out of the Alonso era at McLaren, it was the remarkable Andrea Stella. Brown does the talking and runs the front end of the shop; the back end is run by Stella, and it’s great that he occasionally comes forward to speak.
Of course, it’s Zak’s team, and bringing Stella in was probably the smartest move he ever made, as was discovering Norris and putting full faith in him. The masterstroke was scooping Oscar Piastri from Alpine to form one of the finest driver pairings of the modern era.
I cannot think of any team that’s had two such high-calibre teammates together, duking it out since Hamilton-Rosberg, Hamilton-Alonso, and before them, Prost-Senna. They have delivered the F1 Constructors’ Championships two years in a row, and their first Drivers’ Championship since Hamilton in 2008 is now within reach.
How Ferrari wish they had a Zak Brown!
How Ferrari might wish Fred Vasseur or Binotto could have done what Zak Brown has achieved in that time. James Vowles has been talking the talk at Williams, he’s two years into that project and has three or four more to catch up to Zak if you give him the same timeline. Aston Martin are nowhere near it. They’ve thrown everything at it.
So, big kudos to Brown. He’s a racing man through and through. That’s what makes him special for me. He knows drivers, he knows teams, he knows motorsport. How do I know that? I don’t know the guy personally, but just by the way he deals with drivers. Over-promise, under-deliver, that’s the usual pattern in F1 (all motorsport) leadership
This is not disparaging, but rather how it has worked in the paddocks since racing began. All team bosses do that, Enzo Ferrari, the most famous for prying the best drivers to Maranello. Ditto Colin Chapman with Lotus. And many others since then
And for me, the sublime pointer is Zak's choice of race cars in his magnificent collection. I know those cars, I’ve photographed them. They’re historic, and he has a story for every one of them. That makes him, for me, the most interesting team boss on the grid, because racing is in his blood through and through.
I used to believe that to succeed in Formula 1, you had to focus solely on it. But that was then and this is now, I’ve changed my mind. Ferrari have shown that a WEC Hypercar programme can be a good thing. It’s good for big teams like Ferrari, McLaren, Aston Martin, and Mercedes to flex their operational expertise in other series.
Times have changed in how teams go racing
It makes no sense, in this day and age, to focus solely on Formula 1. Yes, it can be 50% of your racing programme, but you can plug in a WEC programme or GT3 if you want, because that’s how the sport has evolved. Maximising resources that actually spin off from one category to another makes financial sense and more so as this dawns on racing organisations that are no longer mere spare garages within a massive factory.
Toyota does so with a myriad of programmes at the highest level, spearheaded by its Gazoo Racing WEC Hypercar effort. Porsche are doing the same. Ditto Cadillac and Ford, who are entering F1 in 2026 to compete their expensive projects in top top-flight international series and big-time national series.
If big teams aren’t making the most of the major series open to them, they’re losing out on data, driver development, and opportunities to develop operational depth. Eventually, it will all synergize.
I believe that when the FIA and Formula 1 realise that a world engine solution, one power unit detuned for Formula 2, WEC Hypercar, and other series, is the way forward, the sport will truly unify and aving teams in multiple series will be the go-to business model.
If that happens or not, why not compete in other series? That’s exactly what Brown said years ago, which I disagreed with then, but I now admit that logic makes perfect sense given where motorsport is today.
While McLaren will obviously always prioritise the Formula 1 World Title, they will also push hard in any series they enter. Their Triple Crown target, with IndyCar and WEC, is an amazing, almost unrealistic goal that promotes McLaren as a global brand.
So, as a McLaren fan, since I first supported them in the 1980s, a proud Marlboro era when they cleaned up everything, we’ve stuck through thick and thin. And now, I stand and applaud Zak Brown and the men and women he handpicked to rebuild this McLaren team.
It makes me super, super proud. Long may it continue! Standing ovation!
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