Why McLaren can be a true force in F1 again

As frustrated as he was with his own third-place finish, Lewis Hamilton spoke with real heart and pride about the performance of his former team, McLaren, in qualifying for the 2020 Formula 1 season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Lando Norris had qualified fourth at Yas Marina. On face value, it was a decent but hardly extraordinary result, and not even the team's best Saturday of the season. But the gap of 0.251 seconds to pole was minimal by any metric and, while skewed a bit by the fresh power unit in Norris's car, it was proof of how far McLaren has come.

The regular gulf to Mercedes and Red Bull returned in the race, yet Norris and team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr were able to cross the line fifth and sixth respectively, clinching McLaren third place in the constructors' championship. It represented McLaren's best season since 2012, and a continuation of its rise out of the doldrums in which it floundered just a few years ago.

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While Hamilton's optimism of a McLaren title fight this year is perhaps too wishful a thought, the fact that it is even a consideration acts as proof of the team's transformation. This year may be too soon but, given its trajectory and the foundations that are being put in place, McLaren is once again beginning to get a taste for success.

McLaren's rise has taken place largely under the stewardship of Zak Brown, who joined in November 2016, initially as executive director before becoming McLaren Racing CEO. Upon arrival at Woking, the American found a team in desperate need of change.

"What I walked into was a team very much on the decline in almost every aspect," says Brown. "The sponsorship from Vodafone, Johnnie Walker, GSK and ExxonMobil had gone, down to almost a blank car.

"In terms of results, the facts are the facts: we were ninth in the championship [in 2015]. That manifested itself into a very unhappy workforce. When you walked around the shop, heads were down."

It forced change. Ron Dennis had departed at the end of 2016 amid a tussle for control of McLaren, ending his long tenure at the team. Jost Capito left after just four months as CEO. A miserable 2017 prompted a split with Honda, ending McLaren's de facto works status.

Although McLaren rose to sixth in the table after the switch to Renault, the car was still far from competitive and Honda's loss left a considerable financial gap for Brown to make up. He was wearing many caps while he pieced his management team together.

"I've always felt like McLaren is Star Wars, but we became a bit Darth Vader, and we needed to be a bit more Luke Skywalker" Zak Brown

"I don't think it's any one individual person's fault, there's not a blame game here," says Brown, reflecting on McLaren's decline. "But you had a revolving door of leadership, starting at the top. You had a well-documented and publicised shareholder battle. You had an automotive company that was getting started and built, so I think you didn't have as much focus and leadership and vision on the Formula 1 car.

"You had Ron out, Martin [Whitmarsh] in, Martin out, Ron in, Eric [Boullier] in, Jost in, Jost out - I think any racing team or business, if you have effectively five leaders in the span of five years, that's not a recipe for success and leadership of a racing team. That just manifested itself into a very unhealthy environment."

McLaren had also lost a certain amount of warmth. As successful as Dennis had been in building the McLaren empire, his obsessive tendencies had arguably sapped some of the team's personality, particularly when the going got tough. Brown makes his admiration for Dennis clear, before taking the conversation to a galaxy far, far away.

"I've always felt like McLaren is Star Wars, but we became a bit Darth Vader, and we needed to be a bit more Luke Skywalker," Brown says. "It was about trying to turn the attention of the team and the brand into, 'What do people want out of McLaren?', whether it's changing the car to papaya because that's what the fans want, or something else.

"By getting the right people in the right place, focusing the organisation, and bringing some energy and change, we're now starting to see that all working."

The force grew stronger for McLaren as the pieces fell into place. Former Porsche LMP1 chief Andreas Seidl joined as team principal in 2019, while James Key took up the role of technical director. The car continued to fill up with sponsors. The warmth McLaren had been chasing returned in droves, partly thanks to the all-new line-up of Norris and Sainz for 2019 that brought a youthful, fun image to the squad.

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And the on-track results improved thick and fast. McLaren rose to fourth in the constructors' championship in 2019, trailing only the 'big three' of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

Sainz picked up its first podium in over five years at the Brazilian Grand Prix after Hamilton was hit with a post-race penalty, sparking wild celebrations that saw as many McLaren personnel as possible get onto the Interlagos podium hours after the race finished. The move was mocked unfairly by some of the bigger teams, but it proved how much the result meant to the whole operation.

It would not be a one-off, either. McLaren started the 2020 season strongly as Norris snared his first F1 podium in Austria (again thanks to a Hamilton penalty, this time applied in time for the team to take part in the actual ceremony), before Sainz came within a couple of laps of victory at Monza, where he finished second behind Pierre Gasly.

Although the MCL35 lacked the outright pace of immediate rivals Racing Point and Renault for much of the year, McLaren was able to beat both to third place in the standings, rising a place thanks to Ferrari's fall.

Brown isn't one to get high on his own supply, though. Even off the back of two impressive seasons, he warns that McLaren "still has a long way to go".

"While we've had a lot more good days in the past two years, it's only going to get tougher," he accepts. "We need to keep our feet on the ground in this journey of being ninth, sixth, fourth, third in the championship. I don't think that means second and first in the next two years. As you get nearer the front, it gets tougher."

It is for that reason that McLaren knows it cannot afford to stand still. The team signed a deal to switch to Mercedes engines for 2021 back in 2019, and has stuck to the plan despite the car freeze for this year in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the shift has forced McLaren to spend its two permitted development tokens on the rear of its car to fit the new power unit, Norris is confident it will offer a step forward.

"All round, it's a better package," he says. "It's more power. Touch wood, it offers more reliability and those kind of things.

"Bringing in that level of investment while you're living with COVID is not easy, and I think that speaks to the confidence MSP has in McLaren, Formula 1, and our long-term plan" Zak Brown

"It's a slightly better-fitting package, so as just a whole, there's a lot of positives about it. I'm sure there's going to be some things which are a bit trickier, but as a package it should be much better, and that gives us good confidence it will take us that little bit further towards the top."

The other boost for McLaren comes on the driver front. After Sainz's star displays through 2019 prompted Ferrari to snap him up to replace four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, McLaren wasted little time in pursuing Daniel Ricciardo as a replacement. Ricciardo reciprocated its eagerness, walking away from the works Renault team he so famously left Red Bull for less than two years earlier in order to sign for McLaren. It was a huge show of confidence in the project being pieced together at Woking. And the Australian is a proven F1 race winner.

But 2020 was not all good news for McLaren. The financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed its "fragile" business model, to quote executive chairman Paul Walsh, and forced it into action. A £150m loan was taken out with the National Bank of Bahrain to ease short-term cashflow problems, while the McLaren Group announced plans for 1200 redundancies, around 70 of which came from the F1 operation.

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It also took steps towards selling the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking to then be leased back to release some cash tied up in real estate. Many of the projects, such as the construction of a new windtunnel, also became subject to delays due to the pandemic. Amid the worldwide economic concerns through 2020, McLaren was nevertheless able to get a fresh investment deal across the line.

Announced just hours before the season finale in Abu Dhabi, McLaren Racing welcomed new minority shareholder MSP Sports Capital, an American consortium, which took an initial 15% stake in the company for £185m. It was a move that not only brought knowhow from the worlds of baseball, basketball and sports broadcasting to McLaren, but also alleviated the financial concerns that had been bubbling away.

"All the financial issues that we had are now behind us," Brown says. "We've been working on it for quite some time. As you can imagine, bringing in that level of investment while you're living with COVID is not easy, and I think that speaks to the confidence MSP has in McLaren, Formula 1, and our long-term plan.

"But that has now just overnight made all of the financial challenges we had go away. Saying that, they're very smart, shrewd investors, so I need to spend their money wisely, and provide them a return on their investment.

"But the bank account is there to support the business plan that I and my leadership team have put together to get this journey back to competing for the world championship, and adding to the motorsport portfolio when and if it makes sense."

The investment ensures all of the projects McLaren is working on can go ahead as planned, with Brown saying it offers "the resources we need to compete at the highest level". Although he admitted it would take "a couple of years" to catch up on its capital expenditure plans, the building blocks to become an F1 frontrunner again are being put in place.

McLaren has not actively fought for a world championship since 2012, when Hamilton and Jenson Button drove for the team. The loss of Mercedes works backing and major title sponsorship funds led to a futile struggle to keep up with the wild spending of F1's current frontrunners, and the changing landscape meant it was never realistic for McLaren to keep its seat at the top table in F1. No matter how well it performed or made use of its resources, it simply wasn't going to be enough.

But things are changing. The arrival of a $145million cost cap in 2021 means the start of a new era for F1, putting an end to the free spending that has led to the great imbalance on the current grid. There are also significant changes to the governance of the series under the new Concorde Agreement, as well as a redistribution of prize money that will also help close the gap between the haves and have-nots.

"We now have the ability to be a big team, because we're running at the budget cap," says Brown. "It's also brought more competition from behind, which I think at the end of the day is what's good for the sport. I think we now have a better shot to catch the guys in front of us, but we need to pay attention, because I'd also say the ones that are trying to catch them too, that field is now deepened.

"You've got six or seven teams that are all going to run at the budget cap. I think AlphaTauri is very well funded. Clearly Lawrence Stroll is investing a lot of money in his [Aston Martin] team. You then have Renault [Alpine], which I think is at our level. You've got seven teams that I think are all playing with the same size bat, if you like, and I think that's great."

"The group of people is as strong as it can get, and the team is forming really nicely into 2022. It's going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future, I think" Carlos Sainz Jr

It should make for a much more competitive field and, while it will take a few years for the bigger teams to come back down to earth and truly feel the impact of a leaner wallet, F1 should get to a point where it's not about what you spend, but how you spend it. McLaren will also recover a degree of political power, something Brown felt had been lost with the manufacturer 'blocs' who "sometimes abused" their influence over customers under the old Concorde Agreement.

"It gives more power to Formula 1 and the FIA as opposed to the teams, because the teams with all the political power, with the previous governance, were able to better keep things shaped around their agenda," he explains. "I think that gets neutralised.
That's good, because we didn't have the political power of some of the others who are engine manufacturers."

Overhauling Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari (which will hope its 2020 blip was nothing more than that) is no easy feat, even with the rules changing. But McLaren has the benefit of only needing to make some small changes to come down to the budget-cap level, unlike its better-funded rivals.

McLaren is already operating in the right kind of ballpark, meaning it will face less of an adjustment period. Even the outgoing Sainz sees the momentum that McLaren has built, much of it coming in his two-year stint.

"The team has come forward a long, long, long way since that test in Abu Dhabi at the end of 2018," says Sainz. "The group of people is as strong as it can get, and the team is forming really nicely into 2022, which is the big regulation change, when I think the team is going to be ready to hit the ground running.

"Having a much more specific and established structure, the people there I think are going to be a lot more established. It's going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future, I think."

As impressive as Sainz was, he lacks something that Ricciardo will bring: race-winning experience with a top team.

"With Daniel, working with Red Bull a bit more and knowing how to win races and how a team wins races and the car he needs, that's something Carlos doesn't have," says Norris. "That'll be very good for when Daniel comes in, giving those fresh ideas and helping the team move forward.

"It's nice for me to work with someone different and learn from things, but also go up against a driver who has won races and people say is one of the best on the grid. It's a good chance for me to compare myself against him, and work with a race winner."

The puzzle pieces are falling into place for McLaren. Its great disadvantages of the past seven or eight years - namely its lack of works status and lack of financial might - won't be as decisive to succeeding in F1 in a few years' time. No longer will it be taking a knife to a gun fight.

Brown agrees that the new era of F1 is going to "play right into our sweet spot", but is quick to serve a reminder that, much like the recovery process, the road to success takes time.

"I like where we're going, and we've got to keep our head down," he says. "I think we have everything we need now, whether that's drivers, team principal, technical director, power unit, sponsor partners, investors, the resources, the CapEx. But it's going to take more time to gel.

"If you look at the two more recent dominations: Mercedes, it took them a little bit of time to build that momentum to get there, then once you get there, they're hard to knock off the top of the mountain. And before that, it was Red Bull. It took them a little bit of time to get there. This is a momentum business. I think we have good momentum. But we still have a long way to go."

Brown draws an interesting comparison with the dynasties built by Red Bull (2010-13) and Mercedes (2014-present). Both projects had some tricky formative years where they went through various drivers, approaches, and, in Mercedes' case, leaders. But the momentum that built set them up to peak just at the right time, capitalising on the changes F1 faced with the new rulesets.

The feeling is similar for McLaren, even if it's coming from a vastly different position than its free-spending predecessors. The competitive landscape in F1 looks poised to change more rapidly than at any other point in the series' history, making it possible for the team to dream of winning again.

"My first dream job would have been standing on the podium in Formula 1 in a McLaren driver's suit but, because they no longer make them my size, if I can stand up there in team uniform, that's the next best thing," jokes Brown.

It has the right engine. It has the right drivers. It has the right amount of money. And soon, it will no longer face the competitive disadvantages it once did. It all bodes well for an incredibly bright future for McLaren.