McLaren’s Return to IndyCar: Good for the Brand (and the Bottom Line)
The more America the better for McLaren’s fans, sponsors, and road car customers, CEO Zak Brown says.
American Zak Brown has helmed McLaren Racing since 2016, and it's been a wild ride. Brown's overseen Formula 1 rebuilding, reentering IndyCar, and expansion into e-sports and to entirely new series Extreme E all-electric off-road racing. We caught up with him in his vintage McLaren Engines 1972 Ford Condor II motorhome at the recent Grand Prix of Long Beach to talk about the company's sudden return to IndyCar after a four-decade absence.
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"We have a long history here," Brown told MotorTrend, "having won Indy three times. Primary reason is the importance of the North American marketplace to the McLaren brand, our fans, and our corporate partners, that's ultimately what drove us here. And even though Formula 1's growing rapidly here, we wanted to have a bigger North American platform than all the other affluent teams, so being in IndyCar enabled us to double down in the market. Even if Formula 1's racing here, I still want to be one step ahead of the competition."
How does Brown know owning an IndyCar team is going to help sell road cars in America?
"Research," he says. "They tell us. It's our biggest boat for our automotive business. So our road car customers, our sponsors are telling us: the more America the better. At least, the majority of them. Our fans are telling us that. So it's an obvious place for us to be."
It doesn't hurt that, unlike F1 in recent years, IndyCar is already profitable for McLaren. Brown estimates it costs up to 10 times as much to run an F1 team, as much as $300 million per year for the top teams. McLaren was spending half that, and the cost cap of $145 million per year will help level the playing field and make the McLaren F1 operation profitable, too. It'll still be more than four times what it costs to run IndyCar, which Brown puts around $30 million per year.
McLaren's interest in racing in North America isn't limited to IndyCar and F1, either. The company has also invested recently in E Sports racing, which is growing rapidly in the U.S., and is considering more participation in American sports car racing beyond just selling 720S GT3 customer cars.
"We're looking at [the] Le Mans Daytona hybrid [class]," he said. "Our engine doesn't have the right technical specification for the rules, so we'd have to have an engine partner, but it's something we're definitely looking at. It's something we would like to do."
Getting more involved in North American motorsports is no cold business decision for Brown, personally. A Los Angeles native, racecar driver, and team owner separate from McLaren, he makes it a point to attend IndyCar races to support the team, even if it conflicts with F1 racing.
"I'd rather be at both," Brown said, "but everyone has got to choose. And this is an important race early in the season, Long Beach. I was in St. Pete as well. I'll do Indy. Yeah, Indy over Monaco.
"I love it, I live at racetracks. You got to have great people around you. I think that the secret to being able to do more is actually not do more but have more people around you that can do more. So it's hard but I'm comfortable with it. I go to 15 Formula 1 races a year, so I'll do 15 F1. I'll do four or five IndyCar. I'll do a couple Extreme E. So I'm confident I can tackle it all with the right people around me."
Having the right people and letting them do their jobs is key.
"Stand back, contribute, watch," Brown said of his role during an IndyCar weekend. "I'm not involved in the practice session that's about ready to start, they just go on with or without me. So my job is to really make sure everyone has what they need, meet the media, sponsors and things of that nature. The commercial, not the technical operational, side."
You'll know when Brown's at an American race, because his Condor II motorhome (formerly owned by a MotorTrend employee) will be in the paddock. Stored at the IndyCar team facility in Indianapolis, it travels to US races where it serves as his office.
"I'm a historic car memorabilia collector," Brown said, "so when this came up, this was a personal purchase. A buddy of mine found it on Bringatrailer.com. So this was a must buy, but I then did it under his name, because I figured the McLaren CEO buying the McLaren motorhome was not a good way to start negotiations.
"Nothing in here was done other than we had to change the fridge, but this is all original. A lot of work underneath to get it road worthy, but cosmetically, nothing was touched. This is all original, which is what's so cool about it."
The benefits for the now McLaren-owned Arrow McLaren SP team go beyond Brown's management and presence. There's now a formal IndyCar working group at the McLaren Technology Center in the U.K. and some transfer of technology and knowledge from the F1 operation, primarily in aerodynamics.
IndyCar employs spec chassis, engines, and aerodynamics packages, so teams can only really modify spring and damper settings and wing positions. Rigging up the team's IndyCars with F1 aerodynamic sensors has provided much-needed airflow data that allows the engineers to better optimize the moveable aerodynamic elements for each race.
Were you one of those kids who taught themselves to identify cars at night by their headlights and taillights? I was. I was also one of those kids with a huge box of Hot Wheels and impressive collection of home-made Lego hot rods. I asked my parents for a Power Wheels Porsche 911 for Christmas for years, though the best I got was a pedal-powered tractor. I drove the wheels off it. I used to tell my friends I’d own a “slug bug” one day. When I was 15, my dad told me he would get me a car on the condition that I had to maintain it. He came back with a rough-around-the-edges 1967 Volkswagen Beetle he’d picked up for something like $600. I drove the wheels off that thing, too, even though it was only slightly faster than the tractor. When I got tired of chasing electrical gremlins (none of which were related to my bitchin’ self-installed stereo, thank you very much), I thought I’d move on to something more sensible. I bought a 1986 Pontiac Fiero GT and got my first speeding ticket in that car during the test drive. Not my first-ever ticket, mind you. That came behind the wheel of a Geo Metro hatchback I delivered pizza in during high school. I never planned to have this job. I was actually an aerospace engineering major in college, but calculus and I had a bad breakup. Considering how much better my English grades were than my calculus grades, I decided to stick to my strengths and write instead. When I made the switch, people kept asking me what I wanted to do with my life. I told them I’d like to write for a car magazine someday, not expecting it to actually happen. I figured I’d be in newspapers, maybe a magazine if I was lucky. Then this happened, which was slightly awkward because I grew up reading Car & Driver, but convenient since I don’t live in Michigan. Now I just try to make it through the day without adding any more names to the list of people who want to kill me and take my job.
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