If you’re a Formula 1 fan, you already know the complex mix of strategy, teamwork, and innovation that drives a successful team. If not, there’s still plenty to learn from their journey.
McLaren, a standout team in F1, once faced financial turmoil, low morale, and a revolving door of five leaders in seven years. But now, the team has turned things around, clinching its second consecutive F1 championship in 2025. This milestone marks the latest achievement for CEO Zak Brown, who has masterminded a stunning turnaround for a once-lost organization. In this interview, he explains how he led the team out of a downward spiral and back to the top. The conversation covers not just victory, but brand rebuilding, overcoming low morale, learning from failures and setbacks, cultivating a clear vision for a return to glory, and the diverse applications of AI in the sport.
During the discussion, Zak Brown shares insights on:
• How a leader can reverse a slump when internal consensus and trust are lacking
• Balancing data with intuition when faced with overwhelming amounts of information
• Engaging fans and giving behind-the-scenes employees the recognition they deserve
**HBR:** Success is tough in both business and professional sports, and you’ve now won back-to-back titles. How did you do it? What leadership and organizational lessons can non-F1 fans take away?
**Zak Brown:** It’s a complex answer, but the most important elements are talent and culture. We’re in the most technologically advanced sport in the world, and technology plays a huge role. But it’s the people who use that technology to build a great car, giving our two brilliant drivers a chance to win the world championship. A lesson that applies to both business and sports teams is making everyone see their contribution. We have about 1,400 people. Only about 600 work directly on the car, but the other 800 are just as important. If they don’t excel in finance, commercial, communications, or HR, we can’t build the team that gives our designers and aerodynamicists the tools and resources to create the best car.
**HBR:** You took over McLaren when it was in a tough spot—financial trouble, low morale, poor performance, few sponsors. Looking back, what was the hardest decision you had to make? What did you learn about leading through instability?
**Zak Brown:** Making decisions wasn’t hard because I enjoy it and the choices were obvious. The hard part was dealing with the toxic environment you described. Everyone—fans, sponsors (few and unhappy), employees, and drivers—was dissatisfied. The real challenge was getting everyone on the same page, changing the trajectory, building trust through honesty and communication, and eliminating fear from our culture. Decisions drove that. McLaren has 1,400 employees—it’s a big ship. When there’s no consensus or trust internally, it’s hard to have an impact externally until you fix the internal issues. So turning the tide was difficult and took time; it was a close-quarters battle.
**HBR:** I came into my current role from outside too. Initially, I tried to be understanding, propose new ideas, but also respect existing ones. That was tough because long-time employees resisted change. How did you handle that?
**Zak Brown:** It is tough because people don’t like changing habits. You can divide an organization into three groups, not necessarily equal thirds. The first group embraces change and understands its necessity. The second group is on the fence. They’ve seen this before. In our case, we had about five different leaders in seven years. When I arrived, the reaction was, “How long will this last? The last guy didn’t stay long.” These people need convincing, and they want to be convinced, but they’re skeptical. The third group needs to be replaced. They may be the root of the problems you’re dealing with—they have a loser’s mentality, they’re naysayers, not positive winners.
If you enter an organization in turmoil like we were, you clearly need to drive change. My approach was to change the organizational structure. I couldn’t do it alone, so I replaced everyone in the leadership team—CFO, HR head, commercial head, PR head, and team principal. I didn’t come in wanting to change everything. I first wanted to understand the situation, then realized we needed new leadership. And I would never have yes-men at the table. Once we built new connections, we challenged each other, became performance-oriented, and communicated directly. When we agreed on an issue after discussion, everyone committed fully. That creates a very powerful team.
Once that was in place, I could get them to spread that energy throughout the organization. Finance got new energy, HR got new energy, commercial got new energy, and then everyone pulled in the same direction, generating momentum and trust. You’d be amazed how fast things move when everyone has the right mindset.
**HBR:** You joined McLaren just before Liberty Media acquired F1, transforming it from a niche motorsport into a global entertainment industry. How do you balance traditional sporting spirit with new entertainment-driven expectations? Is that tricky?
**Zak Brown:** Not for us. People say sports and entertainment are different, but to me, buying a ticket for fireworks, a race, or a movie is all entertainment. We’re a technology-driven sport, and we don’t want gimmicks. I remember my first F1 race in 1981. I saw the drivers, the cars, and I was deeply impressed. I wanted merchandise, and I still have the program from that race. For me, sports entertainment means the sporting event happens on track, and the entertainment part is how we bring fans—existing and new—closer to McLaren and the sport, giving them a sense of belonging and involvement. Today, it’s about moving from awareness to participation. Digital technology plays a huge role, and Netflix has been a game-changer. It’s not just about how we race, but how we let fans get close to the track, understand the drivers, and see how we build the car, so they feel part of the journey.
**HBR:** You mentioned technology. F1 generates as much data as MLB now. How do you ensure that data translates into valuable insights rather than just noise?
**Zak Brown:** Yes, our cars have about 300 sensors, generating around 1.5 terabytes of data per race weekend—equivalent to 10 million documents or 400 movies. With that much data, manual review is impossible. That’s where AI comes in. When we download all this data from the car, we know what we’re looking for and how to get it. AI helps us get it faster because speed is everything. During the race, some data requires instant reaction, while other data we use for car development doesn’t need immediate response. Our technology partners play a key role in this.
**HBR:** Speaking of AI, how much are you using it in car design, race strategy decisions, and fan interaction? What are your current AI use cases and future plans?
**Zak Brown:** AI is evolving rapidly, and we use it across the business to interact with fans and deepen connections. We also use it for strategy—it’s a key part of our strategic driver. For tire wear, we work with Google Cloud to study competitors’ tire management. Everyone copies from each other. There’s also something like a third-base coach in baseball. We sometimes send false signals to tempt opponents into different strategies. For example, we might ask driver Lando Norris about tire condition, but if we use a specific word after “tires,” it means we want a misleading answer to trick another team. We might say, “Lando, how are the tires ‘condition’?” He then knows to give a deceptive answer. All our competitors do this too. Then they look at tire heat imaging, and AI helps us spot anomalies, correlating what the driver said with reality. AI helps with that. When people try to hide information, their tone changes, which involves voice recognition. When we listen to other drivers, the system can detect: “That sounds off… something like a lie detector test.” These are all AI applications we use. We’re also starting to use AI in aerodynamics development, but it’s early days, and it will grow very fast.
**HBR:** That’s one of the most fascinating AI uses I’ve heard—coding, decoding, and lie detection. The key question is how you balance relying on data with the instinct you’ve built over a racing career?
**Zak Brown:** First comes data, like in business. After gathering all data, you still need to make decisions because data can be misleading. All our decisions are data-driven
