– Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing, no longer sees modern Formula 1 as just a pure motorsport circus. At the Autosport Business Exchange in Miami, he said: “I see Formula 1 as 24 Davos from a business perspective, and as 24 Super Bowls from a fan perspective. These events have all simply become huge.”
Brown clearly distinguishes between two types of partners in the McLaren ecosystem. On one side are B2B partners who strengthen the team technologically or operationally, whether through technology on the race car or efficiency gains in the factory. On the other side are consumer brands that help activate and expand the fan base.
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The racing village around the Miami Grand Prix is for Brown long more than just a racetrack and paddock. “An incredible number of executives walk through the Miami Grands Prix of this world. A lot of business is directly enabled right where the motorsport takes place, simply because everyone comes together,” said the American.
Free event for fans
As a concrete example of the new fan philosophy, Brown names the format “McLaren Racing Live: Miami”. The five-day event at Regatta Harbour, building on the success of previous formats in London and Austin, brings the energy of the paddock directly to the fans in the city. Admission is free.
Visitors can experience historic McLaren race cars up close, compete on racing simulators, complete VR pit stop challenges, and have their photos taken with championship trophies. All Grand Prix sessions are broadcast live on large screens. A highlight is a show run with legends like Mika Häkkinen and Emerson Fittipaldi as well as current drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.
Without partners like Mastercard, such an event on this scale would not be feasible, Brown emphasizes. Sponsorship today explicitly means more to him than just a logo on the side of the car; it means active brand participation in storytelling and fan experience. At the London counterpart of the event series, 40,000 fans came to celebrate with the team.
Partners are the key
Under Brown’s leadership, McLaren has built an impressive partner portfolio. Supporters include Mastercard, Google, Allwyn, Cisco, Puma, Android, Hilton, and T-Mobile, among others. Brown emphasizes that the growing number of partners does not dilute the effect. On the contrary: “The number of partners only has an additive effect on the business they generate among themselves.”
The commercial transformation of Formula 1 is directly reflected in McLaren’s results. The team has made a remarkable turnaround both sportingly and economically in recent years. Brown sees the core of this development in the integration of motorsport, partner activation, and fan experience.
