Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing, shares insights on the current state and future of Formula 1, discussing the sport's growth in North America and the impact of media like Netflix's 'Drive to Survive.' He emphasizes the importance of fan engagement and the independence of McLaren's racing teams. Brown also touches on the potential for more races in the U.S., the significance of Monaco, and the need for IndyCar to enhance its profile. His passion for motorsport and commitment to diversity in racing shine through in this engaging conversation.
As a holiday present to our listeners we bring back one of our fan favorite episodes. McLaren Racing Chief Executive Officer Zak Brown joins Hannah Elliott and Matt Miller to discuss McLaren's ascendance this season in Formula 1, why Indy Car could use some tips from Liberty Media to help it expand. Plus, Brown suggests the Monaco Grand Prix could go away and F1 would be just fine without it.
"...he is the boss of McLaren F1, he's the boss of all of McLaren Racing..."
The McLaren F1 is a famous supercar made by the British company McLaren. It was very fast and many people want to own one.
The McLaren F1 is a legendary high-performance sports car produced by the British manufacturer McLaren in the early 1990s. It was the fastest production car of its time and remains a collector’s icon.
"so glad they bought Moto GP, which is already amazing"
Moto GP is a racing series for motorcycles, where riders compete on very fast bikes around tracks. It’s the top level of motorcycle racing.
Moto GP is the premier class of motorcycle road racing, featuring the fastest and most advanced superbikes. It’s the pinnacle of motorcycle sport worldwide.
"I hear so often I won't miss a grand prix now versus I'm aware and I kind of like it."
A Grand Prix is a single race in the Formula One season, like the Monaco Grand Prix or British Grand Prix.
A Grand Prix is a race event in the Formula One calendar, typically held on a permanent or temporary circuit. Each Grand Prix is named after its host country or city.
"What do you drive? Yeah, what do you what do you like to drive? Well, my daily driver's a bit more of a range rover."
A Range Rover is a big, fancy car that can drive on rough roads and has a comfortable inside. Many people use it every day because it’s reliable and stylish.
The Range Rover is a luxury SUV produced by Land Rover, known for its off‑road capability and high-end interior. It’s often used as a daily driver by enthusiasts who appreciate both performance and comfort.
"So one that I've been chasing for years was Nigel Mansell's indie championship car from 1993. Never had any success. [1271.9s] And then Newman Hoss put it up for auction and I was all over that."
An auction is a place where people bid money on items, and the person who offers the most wins it.
An auction is a public sale where items are sold to the highest bidder, often used for rare cars and collectibles.
"No, I had a friend do it for me, a buddy named Alan where McLaren's motorhome from 1972 and I bought this a few years ago and I think it won auction story of the year where it was McLaren's 1972 motorhome."
A motorhome is a big car that has a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom inside it so you can travel and live in it at the same time.
A motorhome is a large vehicle that combines transportation and living accommodations, often used for travel and camping.
"I mean, for example, the fact that F1 could possibly go without Monaco."
Monaco is a small city on the Mediterranean coast where a special race track runs through streets, and it’s one of the most famous F1 races.
Monaco is a street circuit in the Principality of Monaco, famous for hosting the annual Formula 1 Grand Prix.
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www.bluembergaudiostudios.com I'm Hannah Elliott and I'm Matt Miller. This is Hot Pursuit. Coming up on today's podcast. We have a special gift. Zach Brown, you may have heard of him. He's in motorsport, if you will. He's a champion. He's a champion. And you know it's kind of not
but he's an American working for a British company. And he's a car collector. And he's a car collector car guy, great driver himself. And he's a boss. He's a CEO. He's a boss. It's unbelievable. Not only is he the boss of McLaren F1, he's the boss of all of McLaren Racing which is a big, big job. Yeah, he has to be at a lot of different places at the same time. But the coolest part is me and Hannah. We're not even
here. We're recording this like a week ahead of time. We're coming to you from the future and the past. So happy boxing day. This is a pre-recorded episode. And it's meant as a special gift to Clarence who emailed us. HotPursuit at Blumberg.net is our email address. He emailed us and said, you guys should have Zach Brown on. So. So here you go. We aim to please asking you shall receive Merry Christmas Clarence. I love talking to Zach Brown because he is.
Articulate and he's not so media trained that he's really boring. He is. I think you just on it. Yeah, he just speaks in straight lines. There's no BS. He answers questions directly. It's a dream. And he's a real. Yeah, he's a real person. Yes, exactly. Anyway, it is crazy though. How chill he comes off when you consider everything he's running and operating. Yes, because it's insane. It's he's I mean.
Did you know that McLaren is the only company to win the Indy 500 24 hour lament and Monaco. I did not know that let's get over to Zach Brown CEO McLaren without any further ado. You know, McLaren is the only team that competes in Formula One Indy car Formula E. You've got extreme E. You've got esports. My big question for you is how do you get it all done. Can you give us some best practices for how this is sustainable for you?
I know you just renewed your contract until I think 2030. How are you finding your life sustainable and even joyful? I follow you on Instagram, of course, and you've got you seem very well at ease and like you're enjoying things, but I know you're probably paddling furiously underneath everything.
It's all all the above. First of all, I love my job. I love McLaren. I always have my favorite team growing up and it's a privilege to to to work from McLaren. So it's a pretty pretty cool job. That's a great place to start from. The travels brutal. I think the secret to success if you like is having a great leadership team around me and each racing team is self sufficient.
So the Indy car team is independent on the F-1 team is independent upon the former lead team. There's a lot of commercial synergies opportunities for our employees.
Cenergy. So there's a lot of synergies, but they, you know, the Formula One team here in Montreal doesn't need anything from the Indy car team and the Indy car team doesn't need anything from the team Formula One.
So they can all run independently. The benefit is when you put them all together for our commercial partners, for employee opportunities. I'm kind of the only fool that flies around the world trying to be in all places at one time.
But I love it. It's what I've been doing my whole life. It certainly has its days where you can just get tired, but I'm never tired of it. I just sometimes lack sleep.
But I love being around these racing teams, four trillion in the digital world. We live in. If I'm in the Indy 500, I've got my double triple top secret, the laptop, like I am on pit wall. So I feel like I'm very connected to the Formula One team, even if I'm not there.
So big organization, but we're in the racing business and it's all running pretty smoothly.
By the way, you have been at the helm, not only for the resurgence of your team, but really for the resurgence of the sport and racing. I mean, I read a comment.
You were talking about the fact that Williams was sold for 150 million a few years back. And now it's worth at least 10 X.
And I just think, you know, the popularity of this already incredibly popular sport has grown so much in the last few years. Is that all down to drive to survive or to what do you attribute that?
I don't think it's all down to drive to survive. I think it's definitely played a big role. I think what it's all down to is liberty. And when they acquired the sport, the way they've reshaped the sport, focus on the fan, get the teams to kind of show that the fans behind the curtain, you know, have a sport works which I think Netflix has played a big role there.
So I think where the credits do is due to liberty. Netflix has certainly had a role within that. But look at what's happened in North America.
We've gone from one race to three races and new television partner and Netflix, Brad Pitt movie, you know, who isn't going to watch the next Brad Pitt movie and going to be Brad Pitt from the wild driver.
So we've brought in women to the sport. We brought in youth to the sport. We've really made great strides and sustainability.
So I think you got to look at what liberty has done for the sport as a whole and other participants in it the way we've embraced it and it took a little bit of time. You know, when Netflix came out year one Mercedes and Ferrari didn't participate, which was a bit of old school thinking, you know, we don't want to show what's behind the scenes or the money is not great enough.
And I think what the sport has woken up to and it's embraced is let's focus on the fan and then everything else will fall into place. And that's exactly what we've done. And we have more fans than we've ever had more grand prize than we've ever had 10 unbelievably healthy racing team.
So it's like everything is just green, green, green, go, go right now and form one. And to me, what's really exciting is I don't see that trajectory going anywhere other than North.
Because the racings getting even better and the teams are healthier and we have to man for more grand prize than ever. So I think in many ways we're just getting started.
Can there ever be too many grand prize in North America? I mean, we're at five. And there's always seems to be rumbling that there could be one in Chicago or New York. You know, is there a critical mass, so to speak.
I think there is. And I think we're there now. And I'll break that down for you. I think 24 races is the maximum we can do. It's, it's a brutal number. I'm put aside the fact that I would go race 52 times a year. I wouldn't be very popular with my racing team if I was proponent of that. So but I'm a little bit petrol in my blood, not that others don't.
So 24 I think is the max. I think we need to I'd be an advocate of like 20 fixed races and eight that rotate every other year. So you maintain the 24 a schedule, but you continue to grow the reach and the markets because the demand is there.
Then of course, who are those that get it every other year? I think where it maximum capacity in America's, you know, three in North America, three in the States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil. That's awesome. I don't think while I think the sport would embrace more. I think that would come.
To the detriment of other parts of the world. I'd love to see another race or two in Asia. I'd love to see it since South Africa.
You know, et cetera. So I think the sport and the fans would embrace more races, but I think we're a global championship and we have some other pockets of the world we need to work on. So I think the only way you could bring in another North American races. If that became part of a rotation because I, again, I'd love to see us in Korea.
I love to see us in Thailand. We almost got to Vietnam. I'd love South South Africa, some of these other territories and to make sure that we continue to expand our global footprint. India would be a great market to be in.
So so I think we're in a good good place in America. Can you bail on Monaco? I mean, I was just going to ask that. That's what we are. I mean, honestly, is that can't they just do qualifying and then go to a cocktail party because could we bail on Monaco? We could.
You know, I think the sport is so strong. We have so many awesome races. You know, could we we could? Should we? Will we? I don't think we should. And I don't think we will. But could we? Yes, I mean, you know, certainly that could could fall into that camp. If you'd like, you know, the spectacle is still amazing.
The TB ratings are still very strong. Of course, it isn't a, you know, it's a pure race. It has the least amount of passing always has always will. I think, you know, the sport is commercially so strong that, you know, it's always kind of had one of the more favorable terms and conditions. I think they need to get caught up there because, you know, we aren't a commercial sport.
And one could argue, wait a minute, some of these other venues are driving similar TB ratings, you know, great racing and contributing a lot more to the growth of the sport. Fiscally, you know, you've got the Miami's the Vegas is the Singapore's. I mean, these are all awesome races. So I'd be surprised if it didn't stay on the calendar. But if it went away, would it create a lot of noise in the short term. Yes, would people.
Move on and Formula One be as strong as ever, I think. Do you get more recognition in the US by far for F1 because Indie has been so exciting the last few years. And when I was a kid in the middle of America, people packed up RVs and went to Indianapolis. Like it was the greatest spectacle on racing. But it just seems like F1 is equipped every other league by far.
Formula One's done an amazing job. I think there is a lot. Indie car could learn from Formula One. I think there's a lot. Formula One can learn from Indie car. We can all learn from each other's sport. But Formula One's done an unbelievable job. Yes, you know, I do get a lot more commentary. If you'd like when I'm in North America about Formula One, then Indie car. I think there's a tremendous amount of untapped potential.
Indie car. But we need to pick up the pace. I think there's a lot of opportunity, some of which we're seizing in other areas that we need to catch up on and we need to kind of throw it, throw it up a gear or two. And I'm confident we will. But there's a lot of opportunity. And I think we need to pick up the pace because it wasn't long ago.
Formula One had no profile in North America. And now, you know, we do have to ask ourselves with our Indie car had on put aside Indie 500 television ratings. Why does Formula One have greater television ratings than Indie car in our home market in awkward time zones. We're really race a few times a year. And I think that's a bit of a wake up call is to we can be and should be doing a better job.
Because the racing and the product is great. So we have to ask ourselves why is Miami and Monaco when to your point wasn't the most exciting racing. Why is Monaco getting a bigger television rating in our home market than all of our other race just outside of the Indie 500. So I think it's a bit of a wake up call.
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Are you saying that Indie needs a rebrand.
A complete I think I think there. I want to necessarily say rebranded. I think we need to continue to really focus on the consumer.
I think there's a lot of room for improvement around our digital experience or our outreach to the fans. I think we could use a refresh of the product.
Are racing cars have been around for quite some some time. I think the calendar has room for improvement. So I think there's lots of opportunity we just need to seize it. I'm confident we will there's a lot of conversations going on around.
You know, freshening up the products. I don't think necessarily needs a rebrand, but I think it needs a refreshing. I mean, I think we have to be real when looking at the data and the statistics and go.
You know, why does formula one come into our home market and not long ago had lesser television ratings and now has greater television ratings. So I think that you know, but I think the good news is, I think the product is great. We just need to do a better job. Roger Penske needs to call John alone.
I'll leave that to Roger and John.
Well, I'm curious. You know, it is ironic that an American company Liberty Media is the is like you said, sort of the catalyst to launching Formula One in the US and really making it acceptable to American consumers that just seems ironic.
Are you does it take an American sensibility to translate some of these at least European style racing, obviously, so glad they bought Moto GP, which is already amazing.
So I think they're going to do great with Moto GP. I think the, you know, you never want to kind of stereotype region. Sure.
I think we got to give a lot of credit to Austin Coda. They did a fantastic job during Formula One back. And then it's just built on itself. And, you know, you need date equity.
People need to get familiar with the drivers. And I think what Netflix did, especially in North America is a kind of lift the cover off of how does the sport work?
And the personalities and the drama and the politics. And I think, you know, the American fan really likes to get personal with their, their sport.
And I think Formula One historically pre liberty, been a little bit of a look, but don't touch type of sport.
And now it's a, let us get to know these 20 awesome racing drivers and the team bosses them. And I think fans around the world.
And I think the reason why it's had such a big impact in America is I think it's always been big in Europe and understood, but it was kind of like a fresh sport to America.
And Netflix helped kind of put that front and center and people have responded. And it's been great. I get more commentary now from people in America that go, and it'll be a guy, a father, a husband, and I can't tell you often he goes, my daughter loves Formula One.
My daughter loves Landon, or so, or my wife won't stop watching. And what it's done is it's taken, which is I think been the most amazing part. It's taking people from having no awareness to have a fan overnight.
I hear so often I won't miss a grand prix now versus I'm aware and I kind of like it. They're like die hard fans. So it's been amazing. And we just need to continue to build on that.
Does it make a difference to your sales, Zach? I mean, especially as you guys have started on a winning run lately, are you? Is it possible to sell more McLaren's?
Win on Sunday? Definitely. Yeah, exactly. Good old phrase. It doesn't quite work that easily. We don't see necessarily big spikes on Monday, but you can see North America's our biggest market for automotive business and continues to grow.
And you can see how many McLaren automotive fans are fans of the Formula One team and vice versa. So we're fortunate. Like a few others in the sport, where we've got these two awesome brands in the world collide.
And we help scratch each other's back if you'd like. What do you drive? Yeah, what do you what do you like to drive? Well, my daily driver's a bit more of a range rover.
It's not the easiest place in the world that navigate. Of course, I've got my McLaren's in the garage. But I'm a car junkies. So with your name is sports car, but I've got one of those. And you collect to write memorabilia sports, memorabilia.
Yeah, I'm a big baseball fan, ice hockey fan, as far as collecting collectible documents. I've got a pretty awesome collection. There's all my childhood dreams.
I wanted to be a baseball player and ice hockey player didn't quite work out, but I'm fortunate now. A lot of baseball players, hockey players, golfers or fans of the sport.
So it's a privilege being in the position I'm in to be able to meet a lot of my heroes and idols growing up. I don't think they quite realize it because I think they're equally as excited to kind of come to a Formula One race.
But it's it's pretty cool. I have an Albert Pooos and Paul Goldschmidt and Timos Lani. And you know, as I mentioned when I've dinner with Mark Messier, who I've not met through a mutual friend, which I'm very excited because I grew up watching Mark. He's an awesome player.
And I'm excited to meet him. It makes me feel like I'm 13 14 again, even though they probably don't appreciate that dating them.
Now, I want to ask, I see drinking something out of a tea cup. I imagine it's tea. How has it been as an American living in the UK? You know, do you do yourself adjusting to quirky British lifestyles?
Yeah, 100%. But I, you know, back when I was racing, I lived in England. So I lived there from 91 and 94. I've been there now. It's about 12 years. I love Europe, love England, love traveling.
I've always been a fan of it. I definitely think I picked up some of the quirks if you'd like to call them that. But I haven't left my American ones behind at all. So I'm a bit of a muck now. No one can quite figure out my accent. But it all still kind of sounds the same to me.
By the way, when I'm looking through, bring a trailer, which is like an addiction for me. It annoys me when I see a right hand drive car that I want because it's just, it's just wrong. Do you buy right hand drive cars? I mean, for your connection, everything.
I mean, if I have a choice and I'm buying a left hand drive, but I have both in the, in the collection, it kind of depends if it's a British car. You're going to end up with a right hand drive, you know, as it should be.
But plenty of left hand drive. I'd say I'm probably three quarter when you want a car. Do you know what you want and find it? Or do you look around and something strikes your fancy and you're like, Oh, I like that.
It kind of depends if it's a road car, if it's a race car, if it's a road car, I know what I want. I kind of know where to go. I've got a few dealer friends. If you like that, we'll, we'll sort me out. If it's a race car.
You either kind of react. So one that I've been chasing for years was Nigel Mansell's indie championship car from 1993. Never had any success.
And then Newman Hoss put it up for auction and I was all over that. So the race cars, you kind of know what you want, but they're not necessarily always for sales. Sometimes it's reacting when you see something that comes comes on the market.
Do you think the price goes up when people realize who they're selling to or do you try to keep it a little anonymous if you're interested.
It kind of depends who it is and what it is. You know, you meant to bring a trailer. That was one where I hid.
You don't have to tell us your handles.
No, I had a friend do it for me, a buddy named Alan where McLaren's motorhome from 1972 and I bought this a few years ago and I think it won auction story of the year where it was McLaren's 1972 motorhome.
It was awesome afford condor and I was like, I definitely have to have this, but I don't want anyone to know who's bidding for it.
And the owner had it for quite some time. So I had my buddy bid he won it and then everyone it was quite a little bit of a bidding war.
And then my buddy said, well, you're never going to out bid the CEO of McLaren and then everyone just went nuts including the owner who had a bit of a teary moment because he had it for quite some time.
He wanted to go to the right home and no one knew and that and became quite a cool story.
And I love sharing the history of the sport with everyone. I'm happy to share that I'm the biggest fan of motor sports and the history of the sport.
So I feel like it's part of my role. I remember when impression when I went to the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1981 it made on me as a 10-year-old and so I feel part of my role at McLaren is to share how cool this sport is with the fans.
So I'm always stopping and talking to them. I'm happy to share these stories and when you get into the car collection and things of that nature, you know, while I have them in my racing facility, we get them out.
I like to share them, like to tell people the stories because I know what an impression it made on me and I hope that someone, you know, 10, 20, 30 years from now goes.
I remember meeting Zach and it was cool. He let me look at the car, he introduced me to Orlando, he stopped and talked to me because that's what our sport is about. It's about the fans.
By the way, on that note, do you and you mentioned bring more women in the sport and Hannah and I talk a lot about the academy and trying to get more women to drive?
How do you groom young talent? Do you have specific programs for that? When you're talking to little girls and boys do you say,
hey, you guys should try doing some laps in the go card. I mean, how does that work?
Yeah, you know, one it's about creating awareness. So people, you know, want to get involved in motorsports. Obviously the driving is the most famous part, but, you know, it's important to us to get young boys and girls involved in all aspects of the sport, whether they want to be engineers or marketers or racing drivers, whatever the case may be.
So a lot of it is about just creating awareness. So there's excitement to participate. And then it's about creating opportunity.
So we have, we just announced a program called 60 scholars last year was our 60 year birthday, and it was 60 opportunities for young women ages 18 to 23 to get involved with McLaren around STEM.
So we're just trying to create awareness opportunity. It's why we got involved in extreme where you have a male and female racing driver.
So we had for the first ever time a couple of years ago announced first ever female McLaren racing driver.
We've extended that to the F1 Academy, which is an all female racing series. So we're doing everything we can to create awareness, create opportunity to have a more diverse workforce and fan base.
And it's, it's exciting. So that was Zach Brown and wow, what a treat to have him. He always says something that is new or interesting or just sort of changes how I understand racing and American car culture. I really, he's great.
Yeah. I mean, for example, the fact that F1 could possibly go without Monaco.
He made me kind of understand that in a way that I haven't been thinking about last few weeks like not that they don't want to and he doesn't think they will, but they could survive because they're strong enough that they don't need it.
That doesn't for this week's show. Remember to follow and subscribe to hot pursuit on Apple Spotify and anywhere else you listen, you can also send us your comments.
Email us at hotpersuitatbloomberg.net.
Check out Hannah's columns and stories on bloomberg.com and the Bloomberg business app go there for call reviews events and stories that you won't find anywhere else find it all at bloomberg.com slash pursuit slash autos. I'm Matt Miller.
And I'm Hannah Elliott will be back in your podcast feed again next week.
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