McLaren CEO Zak Brown Still Gets FOMO About Racing Cars

From the Driver's Seat to the Boardroom: Zak Brown's Unlikely Journey

There are not many chief executives in the world who can say they genuinely miss strapping themselves into a racing car at 180 miles per hour. Zak Brown, the CEO of McLaren Racing, is one of them. Before he became one of the most recognizable faces in Formula One management, Brown spent a decade behind the wheel, competing in various series and absorbing every detail of motorsport from the perspective that matters most — the driver's. That background, he argues, is precisely what makes him different, and it is also the source of a very particular kind of professional longing that never entirely goes away.

In a candid conversation with WIRED, Brown reflected on what it took to transform McLaren from a struggling giant back into a genuine championship contender, what it means to steward one of motorsport's most iconic brands, and why, even now, he occasionally catches himself staring at an empty cockpit and feeling that unmistakable pull.

A Decade in the Cockpit That Never Leaves You

Brown's racing career was not a brief flirtation. He competed seriously for roughly ten years, primarily in sports car racing and Formula Ford, before pivoting to the commercial and business side of the sport. That transition was not born out of failure or disillusionment — it was a calculated move by someone who recognized that his greatest impact on motorsport might come from a different angle.

But stepping away from driving does not mean the instincts disappear. Brown has been open about the fact that he still experiences what he calls FOMO — fear of missing out — when he watches drivers climb into machines at the start of a race weekend. There is an intimacy to racing that no executive role can replicate: the smell of rubber and fuel, the physical dialogue between driver and chassis, the total absorption of the competitive moment. For someone who lived that reality for a decade, no amount of strategic decision-making in a hospitality suite fully scratches the same itch.

This is not mere nostalgia. Brown believes his time as a driver directly informs how he runs McLaren today. He understands, at a visceral level, what drivers need from their team — not just technically, but emotionally and psychologically. That empathy, he suggests, is a competitive advantage that pure business executives simply cannot manufacture.

Rebuilding a Legend: The McLaren Challenge

When Brown joined McLaren in 2016 and assumed the CEO role, the team was in a well-documented state of decline. A painful partnership with Honda had produced years of underperformance, and a brand that had once been synonymous with Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, and Mika Häkkinen was struggling to finish races, let alone win them. Rebuilding McLaren was not a simple operational challenge — it was a cultural and emotional one.

The brand carries a weight that few organizations in sport can claim. McLaren is not just a Formula One team; it is a piece of motorsport mythology. Brown understood from the start that any rebuild had to honor that legacy while simultaneously dragging the organization into the modern era. That meant structural changes, personnel shifts, and — critically — a new engine partnership with Renault and eventually Mercedes, before the team's transition to a works relationship with the power unit supplier that ultimately helped stabilize their performance trajectory.

• Brown restructured McLaren's internal culture to prioritize accountability and collaboration over hierarchy.
• He oversaw the phased return of McLaren to genuine midfield competitiveness, culminating in race wins and podium finishes that had seemed impossible during the team's darkest years.
• He modernized McLaren's commercial operations, attracting significant new sponsorship and partnership deals that reflected the team's improved standing in the paddock.
• He invested in McLaren's infrastructure, including a major upgrade to the team's Woking facility, to ensure the organization could compete with the sport's biggest spenders.

None of this happened overnight, and Brown has consistently resisted the temptation to overpromise. In a sport where executives often speak in terms of imminent world championships, Brown has preferred a tone of grounded ambition — progress measured in real steps rather than headline-grabbing declarations.

The Obsessive Fans Who Make Formula One Unique

One element of Formula One that Brown talks about with genuine enthusiasm is the nature of its fanbase. F1 fans are not casual observers. They are researchers, historians, statisticians, and evangelists who can recall qualifying lap times from races held before some current drivers were born. The explosion of interest driven by Netflix's Drive to Survive series introduced millions of new fans to the sport, but it layered onto an existing community whose devotion was already extraordinary.

For McLaren specifically, the fanbase carries a particular emotional intensity. The team's papaya orange livery, its historical peaks, and the romantic narratives surrounding its greatest drivers mean that McLaren supporters are not merely rooting for points finishes — they are invested in the restoration of something they consider precious. Brown takes that responsibility seriously. He has been vocal about the importance of transparency and communication with fans, understanding that in the social media era, the relationship between a team and its supporters is more direct and more demanding than it has ever been.

What Comes Next for McLaren and Zak Brown

As Formula One enters an era defined by new technical regulations, shifting power dynamics among manufacturers, and the continued globalization of the sport, McLaren finds itself in a stronger position than at any point in recent memory. The team has demonstrated genuine race-winning pace, its driver lineup has attracted serious attention, and the commercial foundation Brown has built provides stability that was absent when he arrived.

Yet Brown is careful not to confuse progress with arrival. Formula One is an environment where momentum can evaporate quickly, where a regulation change or a competitor's development breakthrough can reshape the entire competitive order within a single season. The same competitive instinct that once drove him around racetracks now drives him through budget negotiations, technical partnerships, and boardroom strategy — and he would not have it any other way.

Still, somewhere beneath the executive composure, the driver remains. And if you ask Zak Brown whether he misses it, the answer comes quickly, honestly, and without hesitation. Of course he does.