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McLaren remained silent during the protracted saga surrounding Oscar Piastri, Alpine, and Daniel Ricciardo. Now the dust has settled, McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown spoke at length with Mat Coch, Speedcafe.com’s Formula 1 Editor in conjunction with RacingNews365 on a range of topics for a series of articles set to be published over the coming days.
McLaren Racing has reversed its financial position from battling for survival as cashflow issues threatened the business to now being on the cusp of turning a profit.
The adage goes in motorsport: to make a small fortune, you must first start with a big one. Once upon a time that was certainly the case, though the introduction of Financial Regulations in Formula 1 has dramatically changed that landscape.
For the first time in living memory, there are no teams under serious threat of collapse, and F1’s commercial position is strong with a number of blue chip companies finding their way onto cars in prominent positions.
That includes McLaren Racing, which for a time as the COVID-19 pandemic too hold looked under serious threat.
McLaren Racing is an entity that, technically speaking, falls under the McLaren Group, and is the company that operates the Formula 1, IndyCar Series, Formula E, and Extreme E programmes.
It is 70 percent owned by McLaren Group and 30 percent by MSP Sports Capital. That slice of the pie was sold off in December 2020 in a deal that valued the team at £560 million.
McLaren Group is the sole owner of McLaren Automotive, the company which builds luxury road cars. Its majority shareholder is Bahrain’s Mumtalakat holding company.
“Before we brought in the investment to Racing, it was tough economically,” Zak Brown, McLaren Racing CEO, said of the financial position McLaren Group found itself in at the start of 2020.
“But now that we have the investors in, we’re doing really well.
“We’re cashflow positive, we’re self-sustaining, we’re in great shape.
“Hence, our earlier comment; being able to make performance-based decisions (see Part 3 of our interview).
“Obviously, I’ve got a business to run, which I have to be economically responsible, but I’m in a position to be able to make investments if I think that’s going to drive performance.
“We’re our own our own business, our own entity,” Brown continued of Racing’s position within the broader Group.
“What happens in Automotive is a totally separate company. We’re a self-contained, cashflow positive, soon-to-be profitable, racing team, so we’re in great economic health.”
While there is a commonality between the McLaren Racing board and that of the broader Group, Brown’s operation is free to march to its own tune.
There is a deep seeded relationship with McLaren Automotive, but that is, in a corporate sense, arm’s length from the race team.
“We share a brand, and Michael Leiters, who is CEO [of Automotive] and I have an outstanding relationship,” Brown explained.
“So there’s a tremendous amount of cross-marketing we do because we have common customers; people that buy McLaren Automotive cars are passionate about Formula 1, and Formula 1 fans are typically passionate about sports cars, so there’s a tremendous amount of synergy there.”
However, that synergy does not stretch to shared budgets, with the income for Racing remaining firming in that silo; Brown described it as a “strategic alliance” between the two entities.
The Automotive side of the business has recently launched the Artura, a car that only went into production this year after being delayed from the end of last year – due to the global ‘chip shortage’.
Last November, McLaren Group denied reports claiming it had been sold to Audi. Discussions did take place, but a deal could not be struck.
As the shop window for McLaren’s road-going products, retaining the Racing business (and its overall control) is therefore critical to the Group.
While it can afford to sell off a stake as it can, raising cash for the business, it can ill afford to lose overall control.
“McLaren Group and its majority shareholder, Mumtalakat, and the second largest shareholder, TAG Group – Mansour Ojjeh’s family office, if you like – are very passionate about the racing team and had no interest in giving up majority control.
“And ultimately, that’s what Audi was interested in. It was a level of ownership that McLaren Group, and for that matter MSP Sports, had no interest in. That’s ultimately why those conversations were brought to an end.”
Audi has confirmed it will enter Formula 1 in 2026 as a power unit supplier and is widely known to be in the process of purchasing Sauber, which competes under the Alfa Romeo banner currently.
That will see the marque be on the grid as a full factory effort.
McLaren, meanwhile, will continue to design its own cars and, in all probability, buy in its power units from Mercedes – a partnership that has been hugely successful for both parties in the past.
The dark days of early 2020 are but a distant memory, and with the ugly public split with Daniel Ricciardo now largely behind it, the future looks promising for McLaren Racing.
It will field two bright young drivers in 2023 and has significant infrastructure investments which are set to come online in the middle-future, namely a new wind tunnel and simulator.
Throw in a healthy financial situation that will soon see the team turning a profit while operating at Formula 1’s cost cap, and there is little wonder the businessman in Brown is enthusiastic.
The challenge now is to drive that point home with a return to winning ways on track.
Part 5, the final instalment of the interview series with Brown, will be published tomorrow morning, in which he looks at the broader health of Formula 1 from an economic and commercial standpoint.
