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On Sunday night in Abu Dhabi, Lando Norris delivered victory for the Woking operation, capping off a year in which the team won six grands prix.
It finished 14 points clear of Ferrari at the top of the constructors’ standings having reeled in Red Bull Racing which, following the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, held a 114-point advantage over the papaya operation.
Success in 2024, built off an incredible rise in 2023, comes quickly after the team was in dire straits.
At the end of 2020, the team was in financial turmoil and faced the very real possibility of extinction as the McLaren Group found itself in financial peril, exposing the racing arm.
To continue, it needed capital or to accept a reduced level of competitiveness, the latter a decision that would have put the team on a very slippery slope towards irrelevance.
“Closing Abu Dhabi ‘20, we were definitely on the brink,” Brown confessed to selected media, including Speedcafe.
“We were paying all our bills, but we were months away, not several months…
“We knew we could make it through the year but we were in a situation where if we didn’t have a cash injection we would have been at risk.”
Brown worked hard to conceal that reality from the workforce, and the public, though there were signs of how desperate the situation got.
Sales of McLaren road cars were hit hard, resulting in a significant drop in revenue while costs had already been committed.
In June 2020, McLaren Group launched legal proceedings to protect itself from insolvency.
It also took a loan from the National Bank of Bahrain, a stop gap measure to stay solvent as it worked to secure additional funding.
The month prior, it had shed a quarter of its workforce as COVID had a profound impact on the organisation.
“We deeply regret the impact that this restructure will have on all our people, but especially those whose jobs may be affected,” Paul Walsh, McLaren Group Executive Chairman, said at the time.
“It is a course of action we have worked hard to avoid, having already undertaken dramatic cost-saving measures across all areas of the business.
“But we now have no other choice but to reduce the size of our workforce.
“This is undoubtedly a challenging time for our company, and particularly our people, but we plan to emerge as an efficient, sustainable business with a clear course for returning to growth.”
A total of 1200 people were laid off across the Group, with 70 of them coming from the Racing division.
Initial attempts to raise USD $190 million from the Department for Business, Energy and Industry Strategy failed and saw the organisation instead look to shed assets in an attempt to raise the necessary capital.
Protecting its own fortunes, McLaren Racing announced MSP Sports Capital had acquired a 15 percent stage in December 2020, increasing to 33 percent by the end of 2022, for £185 million, a transaction that valued the operation at £560 million.
That investment was critical and played a significant role in ensure McLaren Racing was able to continue in a competitive fashion.
“It wasn’t a comfortable place at all,” Brown admitted.
“[I] was always confident the shareholders would never let it get there [to insolvency], but it was also clear we needed the investment.
“I could put my head on the pillow at night knowing they’ll back us up if they have to, but it was going to be the ninth inning, to use baseball term, before they brought in the relief pitcher.”
McLaren now finds itself in a strong financial position.
It has signed a raft of top tier commercial partners and changes to F1’s financial landscape has meant prize money payments now go a long way towards covering the operating costs of the organisation.
The squad posted a £12.9 million profit last calendar year, a £70 million turnaround from 2022.
McLaren earned around $130 million from prize money in 2022, a figure that dropped marginally last year as the squad slipped from fourth in the constructors’ championship in 2021 to fifth in 2022.
Rebounding to fourth last year meant it was entitled to in the region of $150 million this year (the precise figure will only be clear once F1 announces its Q4 results).
However, that figure will dwarfed by what it can expect in 2025.
Having won the constructors’ championship, McLaren Racing is entitled to the largest slice of the prize money pie, with projections suggesting that could be worth north of $210 million (the exact figure tied to F1’s own revenues).
That injection, in addition to the new commercial partners that have joined the organisation in recent seasons, has transformed the financial outlook of the organisation.
In June last year, Forbes valued McLaren at USD $2.2 billion – a sum that has only risen and could conceivably now be above USD $3 billion – which means MSP Sports Capital’s initial £185 million investment is now worth more than £570 million.
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