Zak Brown speaks publicly for the first time about the threat of insolvency facing McLaren – Without fresh capital, things would have been tight for the traditional team.
Even Netflix couldn’t have made up a better story than this. As McLaren celebrated its first Constructors’ Championship title in 26 years, team boss Zak Brown revealed that the team had only narrowly escaped bankruptcy a few years earlier.
“We were definitely on the brink,” Brown admits, explaining that McLaren has always ‘paid all our bills’. However, he also emphasizes that they were ‘not many months’ away from no longer being able to do so.
This revelation does not come as a complete surprise to experts in the paddock, as it is no secret that McLaren had to struggle with financial problems, especially in the Corona year of 2020. Among other things, around 1,200 jobs were cut across the entire McLaren Group at the time.
The Formula One team was affected with around 70 jobs, and the factory in Woking was put up for sale in 2020 and sold to the American company Global Net Lease the following year in a “sale-and-lease-back” deal for just under 200 million euros.
In addition, 33 percent of the team shares were sold to a company called MSP Sports Capital at the end of 2020, which once again poured important money into the team’s coffers, which were pretty empty at the time. Brown himself never publicly spoke of an impending bankruptcy at the time.
Brown did not inform team about precarious situation
The McLaren boss explains today: “I had to protect the team from knowing so that everyone could remain in the very positive, energetic mood they were in.” Because in terms of sport, McLaren was just starting to see an upward trend around 2020.
They had finished the 2019 season in fourth place in the world championship with the then completely new driver pairing of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz, their highest position since 2012. In addition, Sainz took McLaren’s first podium finish in Brazil since 2014.
The team started 2020 with a visit to the podium thanks to Norris’ P3 in Spielberg and even finished the year in third place in the world championship. Brown didn’t want this positive trend to be overshadowed by uncertainty about a possible bankruptcy.
“We knew we would survive the year,” he clarifies, but also emphasizes that it would have been tight ‘if we hadn’t received a cash injection,’ says the McLaren boss, who therefore admits: ”So it wasn’t a pleasant situation.”
He himself was, according to his own statement, “always confident that the shareholders would never let it come to that. But it was also clear that we needed the investment so that I could go to bed at night without worrying.”
McLaren wants both world championship titles in 2025
In the meantime, Brown is no longer just sleeping better financially. At the 2024 season finale in Abu Dhabi, McLaren won the Constructors’ World Championship for the first time since 1998. And the team in Woking has set itself even higher goals for 2025.
“Next year we will try to win both the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championships,” Brown announced, but also emphasized that it would be ‘arrogant’ to now call McLaren the favorite for the new season.
But he also sees “no reason why we can’t be among the favorites. We have four teams that regularly win races. So I don’t see how you can call anyone the favorite for next year,” he explains.
Furthermore, with Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes, there are “at least three other teams” for whom the 2025 World Cup title is also a goal. But regardless of how the coming season goes, McLaren can already be “damn proud” of what it has achieved in recent years.
