Zak Brown wants to copy Red Bull: 'That gives success'

What a difference 12 months can make. A year ago, McLaren were in last place in the constructors' championship, with a car that was uncompetitive. After three races in 2024, CEO Zak Brown's team are third, even ahead of Mercedes. According to the McLaren boss, the American and his team have managed to pull off such a huge turnaround by following the example of teams like Red Bull Racing and Ferrari.

"Yeah, it's a lot better this time around," said Brown, looking back on a year ago. "I feel like we've kind of picked up where we left off the second half of last year. The field has never been closer, so we need to continue to push hard, but I think we've designed and developed a very strong racing car that will hopefully get stronger, but we know the other nine teams are not sitting still. Our drivers are doing a great job. We've got a lot of harmony in the racing team, so I feel we're in a really good place to continue to improve and push forward and pretty excited for a lot more racing this year."

Brown: 'Success comes after continuity'

Brown has seen at other teams what was ultimately the key to success. McLaren have mirrored that: "But I think if you look at teams that have been dominant over the years, ourselves included, there's always been kind of a foundation of a lot of the team worked together for a long period of time, whether it was the Ferrari dominance, the McLaren, the Williams, the Red Bull, etc."

"So we're still a pretty young team as far as the current team [is concerned]. Andrea Stella is doing a fantastic job. He's a year into his job… Some of the technical changes that we've made, some of the new additions that we've had. And so I think we just need a little bit more time to kind of continue to gel. I think that's what makes any sporting team strong is continuity, trust, relationships. And so that's something that we're focused on," Brown said.