McLaren CEO Zak Brown Still Gets FOMO About Racing Cars
Key takeaways
- Ten years later, the Mc Laren turnaround story is well known among millions of F1 fans around the world, and clear even to racing novices like me.
- If you’re an F1 aficionado, or know and love one, then you’re probably familiar with the fervent fandom that accompanies the sport.
- This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story When Zak Brown joined Mc Laren a decade ago, the future CEO wasn’t exactly signing on to a winning enterprise: Once a Formula One juggernaut, the team had slumped into irrelevance on the race track—with an internal financial crisis to match.
Ten years later, the Mc Laren turnaround story is well known among millions of F1 fans around the world, and clear even to racing novices like me. Brown, a former driver turned marketing executive, has revitalized the team and its accompanying business. In 2024, McLaren won its first constructors’ title since 1998, and in 2025 the team—helmed by drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri—secured 12 wins, including the Monaco Grand Prix. Money is pouring in: Brown tells me that McLaren is approaching $500 million in annual sponsorship revenue (the team barely scraped together $50 million when he took over a decade ago).
If you’re an F1 aficionado, or know and love one, then you’re probably familiar with the fervent fandom that accompanies the sport. As a non-driver and complete F1 amateur, I wanted to understand it better. So I asked Brown to stop by the WIRED offices for a conversation. We talked about the early-career hustles that led him to McLaren, how he deals with obsessive fans—the good ones and the bad ones—and the meticulous, tech-infused, and very, very expensive process of building and iterating on a McLaren race car. Which, yes, he still sometimes gets to drive.