Zak Brown joined McLaren in late 2016 when the team was struggling with its Honda partnership. The reunion with the Japanese manufacturer had not delivered the expected results, and McLaren found itself at the back of the grid.

After three seasons, it switched to Renault engines, but the issues remained. However, Brown, who started as an executive director before becoming CEO in 2018, played a key role in steering McLaren through these difficult years, including the financial challenges of the Covid pandemic in 2020.

Looking back on his early days at McLaren, Brown admitted the situation was worse than he had expected.

“I came in knowing that things were not in great shape,” he said on the James Allen on F1 podcast.

“You could see the brands on the car, you could see the results. But once I arrived, I realised it was really bad.

“I went about tackling the commercial side first because that's where I was most comfortable, and we needed a lot of resources.”

Beyond financial struggles, McLaren also faced internal problems. Brown revealed that the team had a “toxic” work environment, with too much politics behind the scenes and while the Honda power unit was a major issue, it wasn’t the only reason for the team’s poor performance.

“At the time, I think we were all convinced the problem was the [Honda] power unit, and while that was certainly a big contributor, that was not exclusively the issue,” he explained.

“That became very clear once we changed [to Renault] and the results got a little bit better, but we knew we had fundamental problems.”

Over the years, McLaren restructured its leadership, bringing in Andrea Stella as team principal and hiring Red Bull’s Rob Marshall to lead the technical department. These changes helped the team climb back to the top, culminating in last season’s Constructors’ Championship win.

“It took a while to turn it around,” Brown admitted.

Now, McLaren is back among Formula 1’s frontrunners, aiming to build on its 2024 success. “It was quite a daunting task to tackle, but we got there in the end,” he concluded.